


Due Process

by newsbypostcard



Series: Due Process [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:31:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 63,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1734572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/newsbypostcard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan finds he just can't forget Shepard, no matter how hard he tries -- to the intense annoyance of the people around him. What with the Reaper threat on the one hand, Cerberus breathing down his neck on the other, and his deteriorating L2 chip starting to fuck with his ability to think straight, he finds himself facing serious questions about what he wants out of life. Is it worth it to keep following around Shepard's ghost?</p><p>It's probably not, right?</p><p>...<em>Right?</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Earth - 2186

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of my big love story to Kaidan, who at times reminds me of myself [stares directly at camera] particularly in his remarks about tiling and fountains [STARING INTENSIFIES] and who, if I was Shepard, I would want by my side when this Reaper shit went down. But it evolved even moreso out of a desire to write a big love story to Shepard, whom I wanted to complicate, to give more flaws, and to make a bit softer, more malleable. I chose to do this through Kaidan's eyes, just because every damn time he looks at her in ME3 it's so clear he's seeing her do everything in slow motion with classical music and bird chirping in the background, and as we know, he sees her much differently than she sees herself, which is narratively appealing. But this is also a good start to figuring out how I want to write my Shepard; she is by far the hardest character to write for, not least because her personality is so malleable depending on your playthrough. A likely sequel will likely explore Shepard further -- something I feel much more equipped to do thanks to this fic. :)
> 
> [An optional prequel.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1255390)
> 
> I built a [handy bullet list of events](http://newsbypostcard.tumblr.com/due-process-timeline) putting the fic in chronological order, if you prefer to read it that way. I made a choice in terms of how to tell the story by jumping from year to year but it may be easier to follow another way, and that's fine.

  


**// E A R T H --** 2186 **//**

 

She’s a force of nature when she steps onto the Normandy, as per fucking usual.

He’s in the fight, so he acts on what he knows. He knows Shepard and Anderson are under fire; he knows the Normandy can only get so close to their location without risking fire themselves; he knows Shepard will find a way to get there; he knows she’ll need backup when she does.

So when she takes a flying leap onto the Normandy, it’s not like it’s a surprise. He knows how this works; he’s got his hand halfway outstretched to help her aboard before she’s even in the air. It’s natural; it makes sense to him; he knows these motions, even after all this time.

For a minute, Kaidan forgets that he’s conflicted; it all just feels so easy. But then, there she is: Shepard, assault rifle in hand, here, aboard the Normandy. And then he remembers.

He gives her a sidelong glance, but keeps focused on providing cover. “Welcome aboard, Shepard,” he says automatically, like he’d always expected she’d find her way back aboard the Normandy eventually -- even though, in reality, this was the last thing he’d ever thought possible, and he furrows his brow and faces forward.

“Thanks,” she says easily, as though she’d expected it too, and somehow that’s worse.

Kaidan focuses on covering Anderson, on making sure he makes it across in one piece, but after a minute he realizes Anderson’s not moving. “Come on!” Shepard shouts to him after a few moments, impatient, anxious.

Kaidan’s gaze flickers to Anderson’s face, and he knows it’s coming before he says it: “I’m not going,” Anderson says, and Kaidan knows the faces of the skinny Marine ensigns that just flew by are etched on his irises.

Shepard doesn’t say anything right away, and for a second, Kaidan thinks she’s uncertain.

“You saw those men back there,” Anderson continues, to cover the silence. “There’s a million more like them, and they need a leader.”

“We’re in this fight together,” she argues fiercely, because of course she would.

“It’s a fight we can’t win,” Anderson counters; “not without help.”

Kaidan’s gaze flits over fleetingly, daringly to Shepard’s face, and he’s unsurprised to find her already looking at him, as though for confirmation that Anderson’s full of crazy talk. He cocks an eyebrow and inclines his head, as though to say Anderson has a point; and he does. More than a small part of Kaidan wants to stay behind, too, to defend his home both as Earth and as Vancouver -- to make sure his parents are okay.

But he also wants to stay aboard the Normandy, to try to seal this unfinished business from years ago; and by the way Shepard starts arguing with Anderson -- as though a relieved Commander could for a second convince a decorated Admiral that she knows best -- he knows he wouldn’t mind being alongside to watch her try to browbeat the Council into accepting her evidence about the Reapers once and for all.

Yet for some reason, it had never occurred to him that she might be reinstated as part of the Alliance; and it’s a shock to the system, a blip in his ironclad concentration, to see her dogtags flying across the chasm from Anderson’s hand directly into Shepard’s.

Kaidan grits his teeth. Parts of it may feel easy, but others …

He had definitely never accounted for this.

_”--Kaidan, you have to stop taking these to work with you--”_

_“No, I don’t,” he’d replied, stubborn._

_‘She’s gone, Kay. She’s dead.”_

_“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t with me.”_

_“Oh my god. Listen -- keep them in a box under your bed or something. I get it, I do. Love, loss -- it sucks. It sucks mega krogan ass. But having Shepard’s tags on your person, especially while you’re on duty -- if you get shot...”_

_”I don’t think you’re understanding me, Allison: I don’t care.”_

_“Better yet,” she’d said, pretending not to have heard him, “turn them in to the Alliance. Turn them into someone you can trust. Anderson! Give them to Anderson. He’ll keep them, I’m sure, and you can stop literally holding onto the past--”_

_“Listen--” He’d breathed deeply, pressed his hand into a fist, set it gently on the table. “I get your intention here, but I’m -- not ready for that. Okay? Someday. Someday, when I’m ready, I’ll give them to Anderson. They deserve to be with the Alliance, I know that; she would’ve wanted that. But for now, for all everyone knows, Shepard’s tags are among the lost in the Normandy’s wreckage. To admit that I have them is…”_

_“Like admitting she’s really gone?” she’d finished for him._

_Kaidan had looked up and ignored the way Allison’s head had cocked in sympathy as she’d read the expression on his face. “I’m just not ready for that,” he’d repeated, and ignored the presence of her tags in his pocket as he’d taken a solid pull from his beer._

It’s another shock to see the expression on Shepard’s face as she turns from Anderson. 

She looks pre-emptively defeated, exhaustion setting deep into her bones, and for a second Kaidan is _scared_. It’s like the thought that it’s a fight they can’t win has rested on her, and looking at her, it’s like she’s already accepted Anderson’s loss. Looking at her, it’s like he couldn’t possibly survive staying behind; looking at her, it’s like Earth couldn’t possibly withstand the Reaper assault. 

He’s seen her wear this expression once before, only now it’s masked by professional necessity, guarded by promises about returning with reinforcements but god only knows when; and he kicks his rifle behind him into its holster and stills, forces his arms to stay at his side, to make sure he doesn’t reach out to her.

It’s the second time in a day and the third time in three years he’s been close enough to do it, to touch her, to take her into his arms and say at last, _You’re okay_ and also _You’re alive_ ; and if he turns to retreat deeper into the ship just moments after he finds it in himself to tear his gaze away, it’s purely out of preservation of the professional integrity he’s worked hard to develop these past years.

_\--The whiskey had begun affecting him in earnest, so maybe he’d just been drunk; but maybe, on the other hand, he was finally starting to understand how Shepard was different._

_Loss had gutted her._

_She hadn’t been on a ship in months, yet she talked about lost crew members like the casualties had happened yesterday. Her usual determination not to dwell on losses, instead to eradicate their source, had been replaced by something else -- a profound sadness; a guilt._

_He’d turned his head to look at her -- not for long, but just for long enough to be able to remember, later, the expression on her face, this expression he’d never seen before -- before turning away again, something fighting furiously in his gut._

_There may have been a panel of glass between them, but Kaidan had set his fingertips against its bottom seam as she’d spoken, hopefully imperceptibly. He’d been trying to fool himself into believing he was offering her a point of contact; fool himself into believing she’d seen the gesture anyway, and had set her own fingertips against his on the other side._

_But at the same time as he’d done this, it turned out that he was different too. Suddenly he was too driven by his loyalty to the Alliance to truly understand what Shepard has a right to be upset about -- what did she expect was going to happen, after all? -- and his mouth had gotten away from him._

_“Maybe that’s just the cost of working with Cerberus, Shepard,” he’d heard himself say as she talked about death, his own voice serving to shatter his own fantasy featuring himself as a comfort; and he may have been drunk and he might be an idiot, but he’s honest, too, and sometimes the truth fucking hurts, baby._

_He hadn’t looked at her after he’d said it, couldn’t bring himself to do it, but he’d imagined her withdrawing on the other side of the glass. ”Maybe,” she’d said, voice hollow, after a moment; and minutes of silence had spanned between them until Kaidan had finally gotten up to go._

Kaidan shirks his rifle off his back as he gets to the back of the Normandy and props himself up with both arms against the weapons cabinet, just for a second. Then, to block out the sounds of screams and destruction outside the Normandy’s frame, he busies himself with taking Shepard’s armour out from within the locker, piece by piece. Anderson had ordered the ship to be stocked with it, “just in case,” and Kaidan wondered if he’d planned to stay behind all along. 

He takes his time to give himself a chance to get his professional grip back -- to avoid being roped back into conversation with Shepard again too soon. But there’s only so many things he can busy his hands with before current affairs catch up with him, and the knot in his gut tightens. 

He picks up an assault rifle and turns it over in his hands, questioning whether he should be aboard the ship at all. Maybe Anderson made the right call. Maybe the need for higher-ranking officials was enough that Kaidan should be on the ground, too, organizing the troops on the front lines instead of rallying for backup to bureaucrats who never seemed to be able to recognize a threat when they saw one, let alone offer assistance. 

But as Shepard comes storming through the cargo hold with Vega yelling questions at her close behind, Kaidan realizes that Anderson’s a much craftier bastard than he could’ve realized. Shepard was hardly reinstated as far as the rest of the Alliance was concerned; that would come later, when there was enough calm to instate her into the computer’s systems again. That meant that the Normandy couldn’t run if he left -- the ship may recognize Shepard’s authorization from their respective Cerberus days, but that doesn’t mean that she can legally have command of it. 

With Major Kaidan Alenko on board, on the other hand, everyone’s asses are covered. They can dock at the Citadel -- legally -- until Shepard’s name can be put back into the computer, which means appealing to the Council and potentially getting to Earth faster. And without Kaidan … well, it’d be Vega, Cortez, or -- god forbid -- Joker in charge of the ship, and no Lieutenant should be in charge of any ship, let alone the Normandy. 

And even if Shepard _was_ legally in charge … 

Well … it wasn’t that he didn’t trust her to run the mission to the Citadel. That much he knows she’ll do, _probably_ without “accidentally” stumbling into the hands of a terrorist organization along the way. But he wouldn’t be serving the Alliance if he abandoned their best ship in the hands of someone recently relieved of duty for traitorous defection. 

And suddenly he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can’t leave the Normandy for any reason. 

He shuts his eyes, covers his face with a hand, and curses every available god for putting him in this position; and then he spins around, finding enough courage to face Shepard head-on as she approaches, announcing their departure. “What’s going on?” Kaidan asks, ignoring Vega’s persistent sputtering, as she moves toward the controls. 

Shepard looks behind her at Kaidan, as though it’s easier to talk to him than it is to answer to Vega. “Anderson wants us to go to the Citadel,” she explains, then turns at last to face James. Kaidan wonders distantly, staring demurely at the back of her head and holding on longer than he’d like to image of the pained lines around her eyes, if she’s struggling to readjust to being in charge of someone again. “Get help for the fight,” she explains to James, more carefully. 

“Bullshit!” Vega insists, his loyalty to Anderson outstripping any degree to which he’s ever looked up to Shepard. “He wouldn’t order us to leave.” 

Kaidan hesitates, briefly considers reprimanding Vega for insubordination; but Shepard doesn’t miss a beat. She steps toward Vega and asserts her authority with an apparent resurgence of confidence. “We don’t have a choice,” she tells him firmly; and Kaidan gets the impression she’s convincing herself as much as she’s convincing Vega. “Without help, this war’s already over.” 

“Forget it,” Vega spits back. “Drop me off--” 

“Enough!” she interrupts, sticking a finger into James’ chest. Kaidan estimates he has four inches and a hundred pounds on Shepard, but Vega steps back with wide eyes, and Kaidan can’t help but suppress a knowing smile. “Don’t you think _I’d_ rather stay and fight?” she asks, chest heaving. 

Vega stares at her, and as she holds his gaze with unrelenting steadiness Kaidan wonders if she isn’t steadier in her convictions than she’s lately seemed. “We’re going to the Citadel,” she finishes when he says nothing, tone saturated with the sort of finality and conviction that Kaidan suddenly realizes has been absent from his life for a long time. “You want out, you can catch a ride back from there." 

It’s surreal, he realizes, as she fields a call from Hackett -- inexplicably already aware that Shepard’s aboard -- seeing her aboard the Normandy again. Everything’s a little bit different: the Normandy’s different; the crew is different; Shepard’s different. God knows he’s different. And yet, in its weird way, it’s all exactly the same. 

He entertains himself briefly by imagining that it’s three years ago, that this is just a bizzaro world version of a standard day aboard the Systems Alliance Starship SSV Normandy. Now Kaidan’s in charge, Garrus has been replaced by a human arms specialist with comical muscles, and Shepard’s now capable of giving the barest indication that she’d ever been scared in her life. He might’ve had a daydream along these lines once or twice, back in the day. 

But now it’s real, here, now, in front of him -- and what’s more, Earth is ablaze below them, inconquerable Reaper forces destroying the planet, their lives, the city he’s called home for nearly twenty years. 

Yeah … it’s definitely surreal. 

He watches Shepard move about the cargo hold as they muse about what could possibly be on Mars; watches as she loads a pistol, as she moves toward the armour he laid out for her, her back ramrod straight, barely a hair out of place. Kaidan feels faintly lightheaded just thinking about it. Working with Shepard again _at all_ was not something he’d ever considered, let alone aboard the Normandy. 

He follows her command without question when she looks at him and says, “Grab your gear”; and as Vega falls into step behind him, he realizes how easy it is to fall into her command. It’s like she’d been here all along -- like she’d never even left -- just because of the atmosphere she puts out by sheer force of being; and he realizes he’ll never really be in charge. 

It’s the conviction she puts into everything that gets him, even now that he can see the cracks in it. Either her conviction was really never fractured like this when they used to serve together or he’d just never noticed; he thinks the shimmer of her time with Cerberus might just be letting Kaidan cast a more critical light over mannerisms she’s always had. But it’s still true that she puts something behind her command, something difficult to argue with, that he doesn’t always see in the Alliance anymore. Something slides into place with him as he considers following the lead of someone once again who genuinely believes every action they command is necessary for the goal they’re trying to accomplish; but so too does something feel unsettled. 

He thinks back to her hand sliding easily into his as she’d leapt aboard. It had been their first and only moment of physical contact in a year, and yet it had been completely natural. He’d reached out to find her, and there she’d been -- hand softer than he remembered, but otherwise the same. It had felt like Shepard. It had all felt right. 

Her command feels similar: Softer around the edges than he remembered, but otherwise the same. It feels like Shepard. It feels right. 

_Allison was right,_ he thinks suddenly, forcefully. _I really never let go, and now I’m screwed._ He groans quietly with the realization. _She’s gonna have me by the balls for this._

He looks over at James as they step up to their lockers, realizing that they’d both followed Shepard’s orders more readily than either of them had any right to, and he can’t help but smirk at the expression on Vega’s face. 

“You’ll get used to it,” Kaidan tells him, and Vega shakes his head as though knocking something loose. 

“You been under Shepard’s command before?” James asks, perfunctory, since he’s undoubtedly already put the pieces together. 

“Back when I was a lieutenant,” he confirms, glimpsing Shepard out of the corner of his eye and forcing himself to focus on the contents of his locker. “She’ll tear you a new one when she has to, but she’ll teach you, too, if you’re humble enough to learn.” 

“She doesn’t scare me,” Vega says; but his tone gives him away. James follows Kaidan’s line of sight to where his eyes have gotten stuck watching Shepard in the cargo hold’s far corner, and, as Kaidan refocuses on James’ face, gives Kaidan a knowing smirk. “Guess it’s a little different for you this time, eh chief? Making major and all?” 

_No,_ he thinks automatically, bowing his head against the resentment growing in his chest. Shepard’s clicking her armour into place and he knows by the sounds, even from here, even without looking, which pieces of armour she’s piecing into place-- 

_”It’s just that it’s intimate,” she’d claimed, and with the sheets wrapped taut around her legs like that, he’d found it difficult to believe there was anything in the universe that *wouldn’t* seem intimate at that moment._

_”We’ve helped each other in and out of armour hundreds of times,” he’d replied. He already knew Shepard was naked under those sheets, but he’d taken it upon himself to check anyway. “For months.”_

_”Before we got involved.”_

_”That’s what I’m saying.”_

_”No, that’s what **I’m** saying. Stop that.” She’d smacked an errant hand and he’d shaken it in the air, mouthing ‘ow’, ignoring her exasperated expression. “Before we got involved it was about flirtation,” she’d continued, “the creation of sexual tension.”_

_”So you admit--”_

_”I admit to nothing,” she’d interrupted. “Now that we are resolving that sexual tension on a regular basis, creating more of it doesn’t make any sense.”_

_”Well, you and I just fundamentally disagree on that.”_

_Shepard had clucked her tongue. ”Come on, Kaidan, it’s different now. Before we just stared at each other, or brushed against each other with the intention of driving each other crazy--”_

_”You’re right. We couldn’t continue doing that. Madness that way lies.”_

_”Whereas now we’re too knowing,” she’d continued, again ignoring him. “We’ll become too … happy about it.”_

_”Right.” Kaidan had shifted to look at Shepard dead-on, expression neutral. “Because you and I are known for our boisterousness.”_

_Shepard had stared back at him and shaken her head, as unwilling as he was to crack first. “My point is,” she’d said eventually, sliding a hand over his hips and visibly quirking at the involuntary shift in his expression, “that we need to put professionalism first. Remember, Lieutenant? Remember that rule you made?”_

_”Shepard, what’s more professional than taking off each other’s armour?”_

_”Boy, does that question ever answer itself.” She’d glanced up at him again and clucked her tongue again at his forced deadpan expression. “It wasn’t professional before, and it’s not professional now.”_

_”What is it, then?”_

_”It’s intimate,” she’d maintained firmly, and as she’d leaned in to kiss him he’d been disinclined to find her point of view difficult to believe._

_So Kaidan had finally broken, letting his lips shift into a slight smile as he’d tucked a stray strand of hair behind Shepard’s ear, set his hand along the line of her jaw, pulled her in. “Okay,” he’d said finally, against her lips, and shifted over her. “We’ll deal with our own armour from now on.”_

_Snick. Snick._ Thigh guard.

Kaidan swallows and steps forward so that James stands in his eyeline to Shepard. 

_Snick._ Breastplate.

He leans into his locker and shuts his eyes. “There are some definite adjustments to make,” he admits at last, shifting angrily within it for want of anything he might be looking for. He finds his armour at last and remembers, shamefully, why he’s here; and ignoring the burn in his cheeks and the rush in his ears, he tries to push everything but images of burning Earth from his mind as he moves to put it on.


	2. Citadel - 2185

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapters assumes and refers to the events of [Mass Effect: Ascension](http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Storyline_II#Mass_Effect:_Ascension), which basically summarized involved a Cerberus invasion of Grissom Academy prior to 2185 in an endeavor to infiltrate the biotics training program to help along their bid to build supersoldiers.

  


**// C I T A D E L --** 2185 **//**

 

It’s not like what he’s doing is _explicitly_ against regulation. 

In absolutely no Alliance handbook does it say, _No member of the Systems Alliance Navy will use the resources at their disposal to secretly gather intel on biotics for potential recruit in the increasingly likely event of a Reaper invasion._

Still -- Kaidan senses it’s a stretch, so he keeps it as quiet as he can.

He first got into this whole business by some bizarre fluke, his reputation apparently preceding his deployment to Intai’sei after it had been attacked by some unidentified paramilitary force -- evidently also human. The Alliance had arrived mostly as clean-up crew, the attacking component having long since retreated. The scene wasn’t pretty, with temporary medical tents set up amidst long lines of burning buildings to supplement the local hospital, and there had been so much to do that he’d initially lost track of his instinct to ask why this had happened in the first place.

For a retirement planet, Intai’sei had put up an incredible fight, doing whatever they could to stop the attackers from advancing on their targets. It was missions like this that made Kaidan all the more committed to rebuilding as fast as possible -- a skill he hadn’t deployed in a while -- to give all the good people something solid to come home to once their injuries were healed.

He’d been trying to sift through a burned out building to find anything salvageable when he’d been approached by a nurse, telling him a survivor in the medical tent named Christophe had asked to speak with him by name. She’d been unable to answer any of his questions about how or why, but she had looked at him gravely as though to suggest that anything he could do would be appreciated; and with a nod, he agreed to follow her, one hand on his sidearm, to where Christophe lay.

“They only took biotics,” Christophe had croaked; then the rest of his sentence was drowned in a wet cough. Kaidan had cocked his head and waited, trying to beat back the urgency that he felt might punctuate his reply.

“Who took biotics?” he'd asked when Christophe had regained himself.

“Cerberus,” Christophe said only, shrugging as though to say, _who the hell else?_

Kaidan had blinked with a mixture of surprise and interest. The Alliance was not being forthcoming about details like who was behind attacks lately, and since the Normandy he tended to assume that unknown forces were everywhere. But in this case, he thought they might feel ashamed that they’d been bested by a human threat -- as though the betrayal was too much to handle, or to inform the recovery teams about.

“Do you know why they targeted biotics?” Kaidan had asked, setting on a stool at the edge of Christophe’s bed and handing him a glass of water to help with the cough.

“Not just any biotics,” Christophe replied after a hydrating pause, his voice clearing up. “Registered L2 biotics. Eight of ‘em.”

Kaidan’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s a lot of L2s in one place. Do you know why they were here?”

“Alliance treatment centre,” Christophe graveled. “Where I work. We have a list of registered L2s; keep their service files up to date in case they wander in one day, complaining of aneurysms ready to burst or, heh, you know,” he raised his eyebrows apologetically in Kaidan’s direction, “insanity. Looks like we got hacked. Fucking stupid.”

“Is that why you asked for me? You knew I was coming to investigate?”

“That’s one reason,” said Christophe. “The other is … word has it you listen when the Council doesn’t.”

Kaidan had frowned, wondered where exactly that ‘word’ had originated. Even now, his instinct was still to defer any blame for subverting Council orders immediately to Shepard. “Council seems pretty clear on its stance on Cerberus,” he'd said instead.

“Council sent one Alliance squad on temporary deployment to defend a retirement planet,” Christophe retorted.

Kaidan had thought this through. On the one hand, the only reason Cerberus had been allowed to dock on Intai’sei in the first place was because it had been an unmarked human ship requesting shore leave; but on the other, Christophe had a point. The only reason the Systems Alliance had been deployed was restorative rather than offensive; they were just the best suited to know how to deal with a hidden frag, Kaidan suspected the Alliance was generally too busy to take an offensive stance for every human colony.

“You’ll be better prepared next time,” Kaidan had placated, at a loss for what else to offer.

“They won’t be back anyway,” Christophe offered with a wave of his hand, then wheezed, pressing his head back against the pillow. “They got what they were looking for.”

Kaidan had watched him carefully for a second. Christophe had taken a graze to the lung trying to defend the centre, and for reasons unknown was still fighting a stubborn infection. Were they chemical rounds? Why hadn’t treatment wiped out the injury by now? Why so much force for a retirement planet?

“Listen,” Christophe said suddenly, interrupting his thoughts, “the reason I wanted to talk to you is because this is just the beginning. Colonists are disappearing everywhere. Cerberus is looking to build their army.”

Kaidan's eyes narrowed. “Who told you this?” he asked at last.

“It doesn’t matter,” Christophe replied throatily, wheezing more heartily into his sleeve. “Just be on the lookout. Other planets will--” he coughed again -- “will get hit. They want biotics, Commander. They will take -- by force -- everywhere. Anywhere...”

At that, Christophe’s wheezing devolved into wet coughing of considerable force, and Kaidan had been batted out of the clinic by fluttering nurses.

He’d been recalled to the Citadel before Christophe had recovered enough for Kaidan to speak to him again, and after his departure he’d been unable to get Christophe to talk through official channels, in case Cerberus was listening in. But the thought sat and stewed with him for days, at first, then weeks: What if Cerberus did have a plan? He’d seen what Cerberus could do; they were indiscriminate about damage and casualties, and that was the sort of reckless force that made Kaidan even more nervous than large-scale organized assaults. 

But no one in the Alliance seems as concerned as he is. Superiors tend to brush him off on the subject, telling him it isn’t his concern; and his equals seem not to care as much about Cerberus as they care about the so-called threats that other species represented. 

“Can I ask you something,” he asks Allison at last, one night, a few drinks in, “with the trust that you won’t hold it against me if I ever get reprimanded for sharing hearsay with a ranking inferior?”

Allison straightens. “Sure. What’s up?”

“How many legal cases involving the Alliance -- or how many missions have you been on, for that matter -- can you remember you’ve seen where Cerberus by name has been explicitly involved?”

Allison snorts into her beer and takes a second to compose herself before responding. “Do you mean including the words ‘suspected involvement,’ or are you talking something more concrete?”

Kaidan winces. “They’re pretty good at covering their tracks, huh.”

“If they’re really involved half as often as they’re suspected, they’re already the best.”

“How often do these mentions coincide with disappearances?”

“Of … what, people? I don’t know, I’d have to look that one up.” She looks at him carefully. “Why?”

He shakes his head. “Just wondering,” he mutters. Then, a second later, he scowls across the table. “Stop smiling at me.”

“Why, Commander Alenko,” Allison breathes at him mockingly, “if I didn’t know any better I’d think you had a project.”

He grunts into his beer. “What’s your point?”

“Are you -- could it be? -- _moving on_ with your life?”

Kaidan looks fleetingly around for a distraction. “Look at that girl at the bar, Allison!” he deflects. “She seems like perfectly, exactly your type.”

She, in fact, is, and Kaidan, by some miracle, has been left off the hook from another talk about how moving on post-Shepard is the best possible thing for him, despite her uttered threats to continue the conversation later. But in a way, Allison is right. His interest is piqued, and the conversation with Allison had only served to further stoke his curiosity.

That curiosity leads him into late nights of covert research at first, to unanswered hails, dive bars, and back alleys as he tests out every connection he can press to try to figure out what Cerberus is up to. His success is limited, even when he uses his uniform to try to leverage information out of sources who he thinks might be intimidated by such a thing; but two months later, he feels like he's finally starting to get somewhere, even if some of his best information is the mere fact that considerable components of the Citadel’s underbelly are too afraid to say anything bad about Cerberus at all.

At last, after way more effort than it should require, he makes contact with some shady character named Barber through one of his back-alley dealings; and -- though it completely eludes Kaidan as to why -- Barber keeps passing him material over the weeks and months that follow, every time Kaidan gets in contact, almost without a fight. Eventually, he even feels strongly enough about his case to be able to bring it to Anderson -- based entirely off Barber's information.

If it seemed off in hindsight, at the time, Kaidan's too consumed with what the evidence has to show than he is concerned about the source.

It seems, for example, that Cerberus really _is_ attacking colonies, and that it's doing it with the purpose of stocking experiments for god knows what purpose. Taking mostly biotics, and with a particular favour for older L2s and younger L5s that had gone off the grid after receiving implants, meant that the disappearances had gone largely unreported. Based on the irrefutability of this fact alone, Kaidan feels certain Anderson will be sympathetic enough to the numbers to at least open an investigation.

Kaidan, however, is mistaken.

“Is this how you’ve been spending your time, Commander?” Anderson frowns, then holds up a hand. “On second thought, don’t answer that. This isn’t our concern, Alenko.” He throws the intel gently but firmly onto his desk. “You’re best to drop the matter.”

Kaidan blinks, watching Anderson as he crosses the room toward his coffee station. An air of finality trails after him. “Sir -- are we as Systems Alliance members not tasked with the protection of human--”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Anderson says. “You as a Systems Alliance Commander are tasked with following orders. Beyond that--”

“Oh, please,” Kaidan interjects -- then turns immediately sheepish as Anderson throws a raised eyebrow over his shoulder. “Sir,” he adds.

“My point, Commander, is that _if_ this is how you have been spending your time, you have to stop following up on this. There are consequences for using your Alliance uniform, not to mention Alliance time, to force information on personal matters.”

Kaidan blinks heavily and waits for Anderson to at least turn to face him; but, left waiting, Kaidan shakes his head hard and clears his throat instead. “With all due respect, Admiral, we’re doing _what_ about this exactly?” he demands. His bravado may be misplaced, but Anderson seems awfully casual about the fact that people are _disappearing_ , here.

“What would you have us do?” Finally Anderson turns, regarding Kaidan with the same similar calm. “As you well know, Cerberus is not our foremost enemy, nor is the Alliance actually called the Biotic Defense League.”

Kaidan appraises Anderson with sudden suspicion. “Sir--”

“The Ascension Project has been reinstated,” Anderson says boredly, “with exceptional personnel who responded well to the Cerberus crisis and who now believe Cerberus is no further threat to the students at Grissom Academy and elsewhere. The corruption there is in the past; the Project is now the best defense against attack human biotics have available to them. As you are with the Alliance and not with the Ascension Project, it is beyond your jurisdiction, until such a time as you receive orders suggesting otherwise, to use your position within the Systems Alliance--”

“Sir.”

“Alenko, I’ll ignore your repeated interruptions if you allow me to be clear a final time: You cannot be using Alliance resources to pursue this matter when there are no according orders.”

Kaidan evaluates Anderson carefully, wondering if there's something he's missing here. “Admiral, is there something about this you’re not telling me?”

“Probably, Commander, there is.” Frustration finally infringes on the calm in Anderson’s voice. “Given that I outrank you, I don’t think it should be a ridiculous conclusion for you to draw that there is some information you’re not privy to. Now, I would not be disposed to give such information to you even if I was able if I had any suspicion you were sneaking around on Alliance time -- while wearing Alliance insignias, no less -- in pursuit of a personal matter, thereby undermining your own authority, my authority, and the authority of the organization whose uniform you purport to represent.” Anderson frowns at him pronouncedly while Kaidan gapes at him. “Tread lightly, Commander,” he warns. “I understand that this is an issue close to your heart, but there are bigger fish to fry. Now I’m not going to tell you again: you cannot jeopardize your post by pursuing these leads on Alliance time without orders. Dismissed.”

Kaidan stares incredulously for just a moment; then, defeated, he abruptly salutes his way out of the room.

It doesn’t take him long to figure out that leads are considerably less forthcoming when he's in civilian dress than when he can pretend he's there on Alliance business, but they don't dry up entirely. Barber, at least, remains a consistent contact throughout, though Kaidan still couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. At least until…

“Got a kid for you.” Barber throws a folder on the table where Kaidan has bought him a frankly unreasonable number of drinks to loosen his tongue.

“What? A kid? Is this a contact?”

Barber shakes his head around a mouthful of whiskey. “Nah. I mean, maybe -- meet up with him and find out. Says he narrowly escaped an attack by Cerberus on Tortuga while their ship was refueling. Didn’t like the way the Alliance wasn’t handling it and defected. He might’ve caught word, from me or maybe from some other guy, I don’t know who you’re talking to these days, that you were looking into Cerberus, and he wants to help -- behind the scenes, like. You catch my drift?” 

Kaidan has opened the folder and is staring at the kid's face. Short and slight, Marius Clark can't be older than 18, and Kaidan wouldn’t be surprised if he’d forged papers to get his implant sooner than the legal 16. The files say he had particular promise, had used his own biotics to keep himself and his best friend safe by pasting them to the ceiling of the facility behind some ductwork and out of sight of Cerberus invaders -- after which time, he'd disappeared. Over his photo, there's a grey stamp, surely bright red on the original -- AWOL -- dated four months earlier.

Barber raises his eyebrows. “That’s not gonna be a problem for you, is it, champ? You wouldn’t turn this kid in for going AWOL or anything like that … would you now?”

Kaidan stares down at Marius’ face, then shakes his head and reaches for his own drink. “No,” he says, quite truthfully, and lets the drink burn its way down his throat to drown out the rising bile. “Tell him I’ll meet. Anytime, anywhere. Ask him what he needs to be sure of it -- I’ll do what I can to let him know that he’s safe with me.” Then Kaidan slaps the folder shut and looks at Barber with steely determination. “I’ll do whatever it takes to bring Cerberus down.”


	3. Mars - 2186 || Citadel - 2185

  


**// M A R S --** 2186 **//**

 

His emotions get away from him. He can’t help it. He is who he is.

And apparently whoever he is needs to attack Shepard in the middle of a battlefield on friendly ground.

He was looking at her with suspicion while they were on the shuttle, he knew. He’d felt it on his face; seen Shepard’s reaction to it. He should’ve known then his mouth was gonna start getting him into trouble, should’ve started curbing his reactions into something more subtle; but he remembered too much, too many details about Cerberus, too many memories of Shepard laughing with her lips pressed against his skin in what he had thought was sincerity. Had she been grooming him all along? 

_That’s dark, Alenko, even for you,_ he scolds himself; but the first sight of Cerberus armour on Mars comes in seconds, hits him like a punch to the gut, and he thinks for a second that maybe his pessimism is well-founded.

Involuntarily, as though taunting him, lines from Shepard’s court case echo in his head.

_She’s not a supremacist._  
_That’s not how I remember her._

Shepard beckons the two of them over, takes cover, and Kaidan keeps enough of himself to remember his training. He crouches next to Vega and peers over the top of the slate they’ve hidden behind; gets his heart rate under control; reminds himself to focus on the mission.

In the distance, Cerberus is putting their pistols to the heads of Alliance personnel and pulling the trigger -- without trial. Without discussion. Without hesitation.

_I don’t agree with her methods, but I can’t fault her intentions._

“Holy shit,” Vega’s muttering. “They’re executing them!”

Despite himself, Kaidan rolls his eyes toward Shepard. He’s seen Cerberus do much worse, and he suspects he’s gonna see worse again -- little surprises him anymore. But he still occupies this bizarre middle ground about Shepard -- trusting her one second, when she’s surrounded by the Normandy, when she’s by Anderson’s side, when she’s by his -- and so quickly gaining suspicion when she’s surrounded by Cerberus. He might’ve seen worse from Cerberus, but he hasn’t seen worse from her. Kaidan has no idea how she’s gonna respond. He’s not sure he’ll be able to handle it if she doesn’t take the first initiative against them.

As he watches, Shepard peers around the side of her barricade -- says nothing -- and Kaidan feels his hand tighten around his weapon in case he needs to keep himself safe. ( _Is this what it’s really come to?_ he asks himself, but the answer is clear: yes. After three years, this is what it has come to.) But -- with a shot of her eyes to each of them -- Shepard reaches around the barricade and shoots the nearest Cerberus officer square in the head with her pistol, as unhesitatingly as he would have done. Kaidan feels his shoulders relax.

“Well, they know we’re here now,” Kaidan hears James mutter as he hurries to raise his weapon; and Kaidan does the same.

Shepard fights well, Kaidan notices instantly -- better than he remembers -- and after a few shots he feels confidently enough in his personal safety to advance down the line. In hindsight, he wishes he might have thought about whether he trusted Shepard not to shoot him in the back _before_ entering the field with her, but -- if he’s being honest with himself -- he’s started to expect to be in a perpetual state of arrested fucking development when it comes to Shepard.

“Throw down your weapons!” shouts one of the Cerberus troops as he approaches. “We won’t hurt you!”

Kaidan almost laughs; and to his surprise, Shepard’s scoff echoes in his earpiece. With something like catharsis, he focuses his excess energy into a Reave attack -- relishes watching the lying piece of shit shudder in place while Vega lights him up.

It’s possible, he realizes, that he had at some point developed a certain jaded attitude toward combat, even against other humans. He’s sure this aggression is specific to Cerberus. But he’s also sure, as he drops the shields of a nearby assault trooper, that he’s not totally sure the motives for his actions would be totally apparent to all who observed them.

He starts to talk himself into cutting Shepard an additional length of slack. Maybe it is a coincidence she and Cerberus -- the two things he’s spent the last year tracking down -- are here at the same time.

Maybe. _Maybe._

If he thinks it enough times, will he start to believe it?

The last trooper falls, and Kaidan starts as James comes up behind him. He looks over his shoulder to see Shepard sidling by closely behind, slipping by them both to lead them forward. Kaidan keeps his weapon drawn as he follows -- why is he following a Commander, again? _How could he not?_ \-- and is relieved when the others do the same.

“Those guys were Cerberus,” James remarks, “weren’t they?”

“Sure looked like it,” Shepard says, knowing better.

“Cerberus,” Kaidan mutters, trying to match her feigned ignorance and immediately feeling very stupid. Somehow when she does it she sounds legit, but when he does it, it just sounds like he’s stating facts out loud. He tries again, steels himself: “What are they doing here on Mars??” 

Stellar. He should never go into intelligence.

“Good question,” Shepard says.

Kaidan bristles inexplicably; drops the act. “You don’t know?” he says, though he keeps an odd gentleness, to his own surprise; and if he hallucinates Shepard shooting him a glare, he’s sure she sent him the image. 

“I’m not with them anymore, Kaidan, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Kaidan feels shame creep into his chest. He sounds as though he’s asking after an ex. “It wasn’t,” he says, trying to save face, trying to will the jealous tone out of his voice. “But you have to admit, it’s a bit ... ah … convenient.”

In what might be a blessing, she ignores him, moving forward with a focus that suggests the ambush may not be ended. And sure enough, in no time another few Cerberus troopers appear, offering throwaway comments about how they’d already dealt with security even as they were being mowed down.

“Doesn’t look like they came here in force,” James remarks once the area is clear.

“Yeah,” Shepard replies with interest. “Just a few vehicles.”

“Must’ve had help from the inside,” Kaidan says. It’s less that he’s not willing to let the issue drop (although, he admits to himself, that may be a factor); it’s more that he wants to offer some of the genuine knowledge he’s collected about Cerberus over the last year and a half. He is the commanding officer present, after all; he’s done the research, he’s earned his promotion. His intel deserves respect.

“You could be right,” Shepard replies, somehow at once acknowledging his point and dismissing it. Kaidan is both impressed and annoyed that she’s managing still to refuse to rise to his implicit challenge.

“No way they could take this facility with anything less than a full battalion,” Kaidan replies; but this, too, is met with silence. Shepard approaches the facility instead of replying. Kaidan clucks his tongue and decides to shut the hell up.

“Commander,” Vega begins after a moment; and Kaidan has some brief hope that he’s going to back up Kaidan’s line of inquiry. “I thought you told Cerberus to screw off after you invaded the Collector base.”

“That’s exactly what I did,” Shepard replies.

“Well, one thing’s for sure,” James says; “they’re no friend of the Alliance.”

“Agreed,” says Shepard tersely.

Kaidan sighs quietly to himself. Of course Vega wouldn’t be inclined to ask more questions than that. He’s going to have to do the dirty work himself if he wants his answers.

And once inside, that’s exactly what he does.

“Shepard,” he begins, holstering his weapon, approaching her at the controls. “I need a straight answer.”

Shepard turns away and rubs an exasperated hand over her head. Admittedly, his timing isn’t ideal. “Kaidan…”

“Don’t ‘Kaidan’ me,” he bites, suddenly annoyed at her avoidance of the issue. Why shouldn’t she want to clear the whole thing up? How is this not relevant to the mission? “This is business! Do you know anything about why Cerberus is here?”

“What makes you think I know what they’re up to?” she replies, sounding tired. He gets it. He wishes they could forget about everything, too.

“You worked for them, for god’s sake. How am I not supposed to think that?”

“We joined forces to take down the Collectors,” she says, teeth clenched. “That’s it.”

“There’s more to it. They rebuilt you from the ground up. They gave you a ship -- resources --”

“Let me be clear,” she interjects. “I’ve had no contact with Cerberus since we destroyed the Collector base. I have no idea why they’re here now or what they want.”

“Commander Shepard’s been under constant surveillance since coming back to Earth,” James offers, to Kaidan’s joint annoyance and relief. “There’s no way they’ve communicated since.”

Kaidan looks from James to Shepard, then lets his shoulders fall. “Sorry, Shepard,” he says, and means it. “It’s just that…” The lift’s shuddering interrupts him, and it’s for the better -- it’s just that what? It’s just that he’ll never be able to trust Shepard again? It’s just that this seems wildly convenient, Cerberus being here, with her, now, in the middle of a Reaper invasion on Earth? It’s just that this whole day is feeling weirdly serendipitous in all the best and worst ways he’s imagined for two straight years?

“You of all people should know what I’m about, Kaidan,” she says; the breath catches in his chest. “Please trust me.”

_You know the Commander?_

Kaidan looks at his feet.

_I used to._

He follows Shepard into the base, lifts his head, and lies. “I do.”

  


  


**// C I T A D E L --** 2185 **//**

 

“Oh, Alenko! I meant to ask -- did you hear Shepard’s alive?”

The name hardens in his gut; his thoughts feel suddenly like molasses in his head. He clenches a hand around his weapon reflexively as he turns, slowly, menacingly, on his heel.

“Sorry -- what did you just say to me?”

Barber gives a sly grin, and Kaidan suddenly has the distinct impression he is being fucked with. “I heard Shepard’s kicking around again. Been something like two years since she was last seen, hasn’t it?”

_Two years, fifteen days._ “Something like that,” he mutters. “What the hell do you know about Shepard, anyway?”

“Word gets around, brother.” Barber rubs his knuckles against his shirt. “You think I inform to just anyone? I know all about you.” 

It has been a productive meeting; Barber's given him another name, a rogue biotic kid, fresh off a stint with Cerberus he had barely escaped with his life, and Kaidan had left happy. He's starting to feel good about the squad he's amassing, not without Barber’s critical help; but as Barber straightens an imaginary tie, sitting at pretended attention in front of him, Kaidan is suddenly left to wonder what his motives might have possibly be to feed him these names over the past four months.

“Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko,” Barber begins woodenly, “born in 2151 on Earth. Enlisted with the Alliance Marines at age 22 after an intriguing incident that indirectly led to the closure of the Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training Facility in 2169, if official records are anything to go on. After that an unremarkable record until 2183, when--”

“I get it,” Kaidan gruffs, striding quickly forward and grabbing Barber by the scruff of his shirt. “You checked up on me. Should’ve known. Who do you work for? The Alliance? The Shadow Broker?”

The smirk on Barber’s face flickers just for long enough to display a split second of fear, which confuses Kaidan; Barber can’t be unused to this sort of confrontation in his line of work. But then he realizes that Barber knows L2 biotics possess considerable ability; he might be genuinely intimidated by the threat of harm at his hand. Kaidan battles briefly between intensifying his aggression and backing off entirely, and settles for a subtle tightening of his fist in Barber’s shirt in compromise.

“‘Course I don’t work for the Shadow Broker,” Barber replies, attempting casual. “But let’s say he has a lot of competition.”

“Who’s the competition?” Kaidan growls. When it comes to Shepard, it seemed threats still come to him naturally.

“I don’t think my boss would take kindly to--”

Kaidan senses this is a losing battle, and changes tactics. “Why snitch to me? Why not someone else?”

“See, I don’t like the word ‘snitch’. It sounds nasty; guttural, really--”

Kaidan slams Barber against the wall. “Tell me!”

Barber doubles over, and Kaidan releases him, splaying his fingers widely in front of him as he takes a step back, trying to keep control of his biotics. “You’ve got friends in high places, Alenko,” Barber wheezes, looking up at him with watery eyes, “but I see those friends aren’t within the Alliance. If you haven’t gotten them already, you’ll get your orders soon enough. My employer recommends you keep an open mind.”

“What the _fuck_ could you possibly know about my orders.”

“Like I said, man,” Barber says, straightening his imaginary tie again as he stands erect, “word gets around.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kaidan spits with conviction, and turns to leave, trailing blind anger in his wake.

“You’ll thank me for this later!” Barber chirps after him; and, suppressing a growl of fury deep within his chest, Kaidan muttered to no one that he doubted that very much.

  


  


It happens again, three days later, while he's waiting for Allison to get off-shift.

“You’re going to want to go to Horizon,” a salarian says suddenly, without introduction. Kaidan has been standing at the bar, leaning, staring into his drink in deep contemplation; he hadn’t noticed the salarian sitting him until he spoke.

Kaidan blinks and leans closer, wondering if he’s misheard. “Say again?”

“You’re going to want to go to Horizon,” the salarian repeats, “when you get your orders. Don’t feel constrained by your special ops division. It will still be here when you return.”

“My--” Kaidan bites the inside of his lip. “My orders. What do you know about my orders?”

“Just that they’re coming to you, and that it’s imperative that you take them seriously.”

“Imperative.” Kaidan scoffs. He's getting the distinct impression someone's playing some cosmic-level joke on him. “I have a bunch of kids who need my guidance--”

“They will still be here when you return,” the salarian repeats patiently.

“Did Allison send you? Tell her I’m not buying it. I swear to god, her sense of humour is getting--”

“You served with Commander Shepard, Commander Alenko, did you not?”

Kaidan stops dead, feeling the colour drain from his face. No way Allison would prank him about this. “Who are you?”

“An ally,” the salarian says vaguely.

“What do you want from me?”

“If you seek answers about an old enemy,” he says slowly, playing with his drink, avoiding Kaidan’s eye, “or about an old friend, Commander, you should really take the assignment on Horizon.”

“Why?” Kaidan’s heart rate is getting away from him. After a year of nothing, this is the second time in three days he’s heard Shepard’s name. “What’s on Horizon? What old enemy?” He leaves the last question unasked.

The salarian downs the last of his drink and stands to leave. “Your special ops team will wait,” he says again. “You’re going to want to go to Horizon. The answers you seek wait there.”

“The answers I -- wait!” Kaidan grabs the salarian’s arm as he turns away, but a burst of biotic energy leaves Kaidan cradling his hand and hissing with pain. 

Abandoned at the bar with only the salarian’s retreating back to watch, Kaidan fumbles for his coat and bolts toward the door. But unlucky in all things, Allison catches him on his way out. “Hey, I wasn’t that late,” she says smilingly; but her expression drops immediately upon seeing Kaidan’s face.

“Did you send a salarian to prank me about Shepard, Allison?” he bites. “Because that was pretty seriously unfunny.”

“What? No! Kaidan, Jesus.” She picks up his hand and looks more closely at his burns. “What happened?”

“I gotta go,” he hisses, brushing past her; but by the time he's reached the concourse, there's no sign of a salarian anywhere in sight, the Citadel a wash of C-Sec officers and slow-moving elcor, as though mocking him with its normalcy.

  


  


It's only the next day when he's called into Anderson’s office, but already Kaidan has had time to think.

He opens strongly.

“Admiral, is Horizon at risk of coming under attack by Cerberus?”

Anderson’s mouth quirks awkwardly, limbs hanging oddly askew as he registers the question. “Have you acquired mind-reading abilities as part of your biotics training recently, Commander?” he comments lightly.

“No sir,” he grits out. “I’ve just been hearing some things.”

Anderson frowns, but seems to think better than to push any further, and gestures at the chair. “Have a seat, Alenko.”

Kaidan thinks he’d rather run two consecutive marathons than sit; but he sits. “Thank you, sir.”

Anderson remains standing, looking down at Kaidan with suspicion. “What do you know about Horizon?”

Kaidan clears his throat uncomfortably and tries to sound casual. “Garden planet, human colony, founded twenty years ago. Doing pretty well. High in population. Diverse. Under-defended.”

“You did your research.”

“Just -- briefly. Last night. Not much.”

“Who’s been whispering in your ear? Should I be concerned about how you know about this?”

“Honestly, sir,” Kaidan mutters awkwardly, “I can’t say.”

Anderson opens his mouth, but then seems to think better of it. “What do you know about the nature of the mission?”

“Nothing,” Kaidan said -- honestly, too eagerly.

Anderson nods and sits across from Kaidan at last. “Those attacks you’ve been investigating?”

“I’m not sure what--”

Anderson waves a hand. “We have received intel that Horizon may be the next planet under attack.”

Kaidan stops mid-sentence and gapes. “Intel? From whom?”

Anderson’s lips tighten, almost imperceptibly. “Honestly, Commander,” he says primly, “I can’t say.”

Kaidan blinks, then leans back in his chair. “Touché, sir.”

“The intel didn’t end there. It seems your concerns about systematic targeting weren’t far off, only biotics aren’t the only group being targeted. Larger groups are being taken now -- entire towns, whole cities. It’s been suggested that they’re being taken by Cerberus for the sake of building an army of supersoldiers -- that they need more and more subjects to test their findings on.”

“Wide-scale experimentation?” Kaidan feels surprisingly calm. It's good to have his months of digging validated by the Alliance's official body. “Do you think they would really go so far as to kidnap hundreds of people?”

“We can’t jump to any conclusions either way. It’s a lead. We have to pursue it, and -- I can’t stress this enough, Alenko -- we have to keep an open mind.”

Kaidan snorts and covers his face with his hands, rubbing vigorously as though keeping the absurdity of the statement away from his eyes. “Keep an open mind when it comes to Cerberus? No thank you, sir.”

Anderson blinks at him, then checks the time. “Your shift is over, Alenko. Would you like a drink?”

He gapes, briefly, through his fingers, his eyes coming up to meet Anderson’s. “Why, sir?”

“Because I think it’s best if we make this meeting a casual one.”

Kaidan stares, dreading what's coming. “Admiral, I’ve had this ominous feeling following me around ever since one of my, er, personal informants tried to tell me a few days ago--” he pauses, lets the anxiety crawl into his ribcage and unfurl -- “that Commander Shepard was alive.” He clears his throat of resistance. “This wouldn’t happen to be about that, would it?”

Anderson looks up suddenly from pouring his drink, sending a harsh glance in Kaidan’s direction. “I have no reliable intel on Shepard,” he says, too immediately.

Kaidan hates the way the sentence unfolds in his ears. “Sir?” he manages only, weakly.

“Sorry, Alenko. The question surprised me.” He picks up the bottle and again begins pouring. “I have no reliable intel on Shepard.” The second time, he sounds convincing.

Kaidan watches him carefully for a moment, then nods his resigned affirmation as Anderson gestures as though to pour him a brandy. “There’s a reason you’re choosing me in specific for this mission,” he says, instead of forcing the issue. Something has hardened in his stomach and he feels suddenly as though the drink is the best idea he’s ever heard.

Anderson delicately hands him a glass and seats himself again across from Kaidan before responding. “You are a highly competent and adaptive sentinel, Alenko,” he says, choosing an oddly soothing tone. “I’m choosing you because, despite the Council’s appearance of confidence, we’re a clueless bunch of diplomats and most of us haven’t got a goddamned clue what’s actually happening up there.” Anderson holds up a finger, points to the ceiling. “I’m choosing you because I need an engineer and a soldier to protect another human colony against whatever it may be that comes out of the sky to take its citizens. I know without a shadow of a doubt that if anyone’s going to get this job done, it’s going to be you.”

Kaidan never has done well under fire of praise. “The Alliance has other competent sentinels.”

“None who hold your rank, Alenko.” Anderson frowns suddenly. “What’s the real problem here?”

Kaidan watches the liquid swirl in his glass as he rotates his hand carefully. “Permission to speak freely, sir?” he asks.

“That’s why we’re imbibing alcohol, Alenko.”

“Okay then.” He catches Anderson’s eye, direct. “In that case, with all due respect: I don’t know if I should go on this mission.”

Anderson blinks at him. “Why not?”

“I don’t feel good about it.”

“Why not?” he repeats.

“It -- I just don’t feel good about it.”

Anderson stares. “Well, I can’t go back to the Council advising them that I didn’t send you to Horizon because you felt a little queasy.”

Kaidan’s voice turns over in his throat. “The whole mission stinks to me, sir,” he replies loudly. “I don’t like this dropping of airs. I don’t like that you’re sitting across from me with a brandy in your hand basically telling me that you trust me more than you trust the Council. I _especially_ don’t like that Cerberus is involved. And I don’t--” He cuts off abruptly, suddenly unsure if he wants to say Shepard’s name again. Instead, he drops his gaze and forces control back into his voice. “To be honest with you, Admiral, I’m not convinced a biotic should be anywhere near this thing.”

“The danger to you is no greater than in any Alliance mission, Commander,” Anderson placates quietly.

“Actually, sir, enemies aren’t _usually_ inclined to take me hostage for the sake of experimentation on most missions.”

Anderson raises an eyebrow. “Now, let me drop pretense: You’ve been chasing groups suspected of biotic experimentation for some time, both on and off Alliance time. Don’t try to claim otherwise.”

“That’s -- personal. It’s different. Now I’m under orders.”

“Why is it different?”

“Because then I don’t set the rules. I have to be on Horizon indefinitely, when we don’t even know if it’s going to be targeted. We don’t know that Cerberus is even involved.”

“So are you declining the mission because it’s too close to Cerberus, or because it’s not close enough?”

“I--” Kaidan’s mouth shutters closed, and he looks away while he tries to get a grip on himself. He can feel Anderson watching him, and he cricks his neck in preparation for a conversation he's sure he wants to have, but has to try for. “Sir, you didn’t deny that Shepard was alive.”

Anderson blinks. “As I’ve said, Alenko, I have no reliable intel on Shepard.”

“Yeah.” He tries to beat down his frustration. “See, that’s a different thing than ‘of course it’s not about Shepard, because Shepard has been dead for two years’.”

Anderson visually appraises his drink with a degree of acuity that at once impresses and infuriates Kaidan -- and says nothing.

Kaidan moves a palm to his head; it has ached terribly all day. “My patience for the cryptic is paper-thin when it comes to the events of the Normandy, sir, as I’m sure you’re aware. What _can_ you tell me?”

“Concretely, nothing,” Anderson reiterates after a moment; but he holds up a finger to silence Kaidan’s brewing objection. “But the Council received a badly damaged copy of a quarian transmission from Freedom’s Progress two days ago. It was patched in through a VI distress beacon that was activated automatically after three days of no movement on the colony. It contained the words ‘Cerberus’ and ‘attack,’ and that _seemed_ to also refer to someone named Shepard. Now,” Anderson hastens to add, “Shepard’s a common name.”

“It is,” Kaidan agrees, shutting his eyes against the dull ache in his temple. “But you would’ve followed up on that as part of the mission preparedness process, wouldn’t you, sir?”

Anderson hides his mouth behind his glass. “I was unable to locate any reliable intel,” he repeats only.

Something like laughter forces its way out of Kaidan’s lungs. “Right.”

“Keep your temper, Alenko. I understand this is difficult.” 

“I’m not sure you do, sir. Is she dead or isn’t she? You have _no reliable intel_ on whether _Shepard_ , decorated Alliance Commander and the first human Spectre, is _alive_ or _dead_?”

“Actually, I have a lot of reliable intel that contributes to the argument that she’s dead,” Anderson replies easily, “and any allegations to the contrary don’t begin to counter that line of reasoning.”

Kaidan slumps back into his chair and, after a bitter moment of contemplation, takes a prolonged pull from his drink.

Anderson leans forward onto his knees and looks carefully at Kaidan. “You tell me, Alenko; you hazard the guess. Wouldn’t you find it more likely that Shepard is dead than give credence to the idea that she’s working for Cerberus -- that she’s been working for Cerberus for upwards of two years -- without contacting the Alliance? Without contacting you? Doesn’t it seem more likely that she’s dead than that she’s been in hiding for all this time, only to now have her name emerge through some fluke after a massive attack on a human colony?” Anderson clenched his jaw. “Doesn’t it seem more likely that she’s dead than potentially _responsible_ for such an attack that she might well have orchestrated in order to give Cerberus human subjects for biotic experimentation?”

Kaidan stares at a point on the floor. “She’d sooner die,” he mutters.

Anderson gives something that might been an aborted nod and leans back in his chair. “Someone may be using her identity. But … in full disclosure, Alenko, since we’re dropping airs -- a very small part of me is a bit worried just because we never found her body. Because Cerberus is experimenting. Because so much of this is unknown.”

Kaidan allows this thought to settle into his bones. “You think she might have been hollowed out and replaced with something else?” he asks, the question slow and draped in horror.

He sighs. “Now I really am sounding like a broken record. But I have no reliable intel.” He looks at Kaidan. “The most likely scenario to me is that Cerberus has another employee named Shepard.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan says, his headache ebbing into background static as the brandy sets in. “It’s not like you’ve received other reports that Shepard -- our Shepard -- is still alive, or anything.”

Anderson’s silence blares in his ears. “None that have been offered with any evidence, no,” he says eventually.

Another long silence.

“So you want me to try to take down Cerberus,” Kaidan half-asks, exhaustedly. The conversation is too much to continue.

“Cerberus as an organization is too vast, Commander,” Anderson replies, “but I want you to be able to take down whatever ship tries to take a single colonist from Horizon. If you happen to prove Cerberus is behind it in the process -- all the better.”

Kaidan nods slowly -- forces himself to become okay with this idea. “We may be signing ourselves up for a civil war with humanity, sir,” Kaidan says eventually.

“I think one may have already started, Alenko,” Anderson replies grimly; and they sit in contemplative silence for some time.


	4. Citadel  - 2186 || Horizon - 2185

  


**// C I T A D E L --** 2186 **//**

 

Consciousness returns to Kaidan slowly -- patchwork snippets of a nurse standing over him in the sunny afternoon, of a beeping monitor in the middle of the night, of excruciating pain in his head that he only has time to growl about for a second before getting pulled under again. Eventually it’s calmer moments, where he registers consciousness only after several minutes of having been awake, arms heavy and immovable over his chest, breathing steady; then it’s officials standing over his bed, his own croaked responses that must have made sense for all the ignorance he had about what he was saying. 

Once he even thinks he heard Shepard’s voice, feels her hand slipping into his, her tone low and subdued as though in mourning. 

But once the figures grow clearer for good and he finally understands that his chip started misfiring under the impact of the assault, he thinks he may have dreamed up that one.

In a flash of awareness he sees Allison leaning over her knees, watching him carefully as though trying to figure out via sheer force of reason whether he’s going to pull through; then, in the next moments of cogency, she’s sitting with an elbow propped over the back of the chair, holding a report aloft in some falsely casual stance that amuses Kaidan enough to bring forth a snort of laughter.

“Oh, hey,” she says, too idly, as though just noticing he’d been regaining consciousness. “About time you woke up, Major. You gonna sleep away the entirety of 2186?”

“Thought I’d take a nap,” he replies. His lips may feel cracked, but his voice sounds worse. “Short one. Few weeks. That’s all.”

Allison’s smirking at him in a careful, guarded way, keeping her head held back. “Oh, sure. Earth’s on fire, but that’s fine. You get your beauty rest.”

Weight falls deeply into his chest as he gets his thoughts in order. “I guess my timing wasn’t great,” he mutters to himself. “No one bothered to save the universe while I was out, then.”

“I hear we’re working on it.” Allison leans forward at last, setting the report aside and rubbing her hands over her face as though to work the exhaustion out of it. She peers at Kaidan through hands set on either side of her face, and he sees how fatigued her eyes look. “No one got hold of me until yesterday,” she mutters, dropping all bravado. “I didn’t know you were here. I kind of … don’t hate me … assumed you were dead. A lot of people are dead. I’m sorry. I wish I’d come sooner.”

“I wouldn’t have known if you had,” Kaidan begins, but then cuts off and frowns. “You assumed I was dead? Really? _Me_?”

“Well.” She gestures at him. “Was I that far off-base?”

Wincingly, he forces an arm up and raps his knuckles against his head. The resulting flinch hurts a surprising amount, which only causes him to wince harder. “Allison, please,” he seethes. “I’m a brick house.”

“Well, thank god,” she replies, throwing her hands in the air. “Now we have the answer. The Reapers will be defeated with brick houses. I’ll alert the authorities.”

Kaidan hums contemplatively. “Your sarcasm is more biting than usual.”

“I’m pissed at you.”

“Why?”

“Look at you! You fuckup. You survive Earth and get beat up on Mars by a … robot?”

“A _Cerberus_ robot.”

“Oh, good. My favourite conversation.”

Kaidan adjusts his position so as to better deadpan. “Shepard was there,” he says, as neutrally as is possible while wincing.

“Haha. Ha. No. _That’s_ my favourite conversation.”

“I know you think I’m joking, but I’m actually not.”

“Okay. So you and _Shepard_ escaped the _Reaper invasion_ \-- the one you’ve been obsessing about for the last three years -- on _the Normandy_ , together, only for you to get beat to shit, by _Cerberus_ , on Mars.”

“I mean … yeah?”

Allison stares.

“Is that so ridiculous?” Kaidan continues, though he can see by Allison’s expression that his own face betrays his ongoing incredulity. “You got her stuck in Vancouver with me. She’s the whole impetus behind the Reaper invasion defense in the first place, so they sprung her when the alerts went off--”

Allison laughs. “Shh, shh, now,” she croons, patting his hair with excessive tenderness. “Quiet down, little bird. You have sustained a head injury and I am being cruel. I believe you. Shepard’s taken initiative; she’s leading the primary defense against the Reapers. She’s got the Normandy. The Alliance is rallying behind her, for reasons beyond my paygrade. Obviously I knew she’d been sprung.”

Kaidan gapes. “I have a _head injury._ ”

“Yes. And you got _yourself_ stuck in Vancouver, for the record.”

Kaidan pouts and, with great effort, crosses his arms. “ _Little bird_ ,” he mutters. “I’m 6’2”.”

“You’re 5’10”.”

“I’m a brick house.”

“Yes you are,” Allison replies, again patting his head condescendingly.

Kaidan lies back and shuts his eyes for a moment, trying to put adequate distance between himself and the last mention of Shepard. “I guess we should tell a nurse I’m talking and everything.”

“Oh, has she not been graced by your _relevant_ , _topical_ , and _succinct_ stream of conversation yet?”

“I’m not sure if you knew this about me, but I’ve actually been pretty unconscious lately.”

Allison aborts a smirk and rises to her feet with a groan, hobbling over to the door. 

“Are you injured?” Kaidan asks with surprise.

“Just stiff,” she replies. “Haven’t slept much. Been a lot to--” Allison pries open the door and is abruptly interrupted by the sound of chaos. Amidst the shouting of nurses in the corridor, lab scientists clatter and discuss fervently; an overhead announcement indicates casualties were arriving from Palaven, and that another two hundred thousand or so were expected before the evening.

Allison exchanges a look with Kaidan and lets the door shutter closed again. “I guess they’re busy,” she says delicately.

“Christ,” Kaidan mutters, staring palely. “What’s been happening since I’ve been out?”

With a sigh, Allison sits down to fill him in. 

  


  


**// H O R I Z O N --** 2185 **//**

 

Kaidan feels uneasy.

He doesn't just feel uneasy because the colonists hate him -- although that doesn’t help. He knows he's downright irate as a result of feeling constantly on edge, and it's easy to pretend it's the colonists getting him down. But Lilith is great -- seeming to genuinely want to help the Alliance, showing him the facilities, putting up his team in makeshift beds in her living space the first night until they could make room in Alliance quarters. There's a lot to appreciate about the situation. Kaidan's just unable to get there, intellectually.

He doesn’t feel uneasy, either, because the towers’ wiring is proving unbelievably fucked up -- though the constant stream of seemingly unsolvable problems is plenty frustrating -- or because their communications channel keeps going down. He isn’t uneasy because Cerberus might be coming; that they might be coming _for him_ ; or that he isn’t ready for them -- although, admittedly, none of this is helping.

Kaidan is uneasy because, no matter what he does, he can’t stop seeing Shepard. 

_Everywhere._

Before he’d left the Citadel, he’d cancelled the first proper date he’d had in months -- not because he hadn’t had the time (although that’s what he’d said), but more because Shepard was suddenly a part of his everyday reality in a way she hadn’t been in two years. Since people had started telling him she was still alive, every woman’s perfume started smelled like Shepard’s again; every building a memory of Shepard; every armoured female Alliance officer now each Shepard with different hair. 

This last was the most ridiculous -- Shepard could look like anyone if she’d wanted to get gone, could be wearing anything. ‘Recognizing’ her was just so clearly a demonstration of his addled psychology. Besides all that, he realized, she could even -- _Be dead, Alenko. She’s probably dead. She’s been probably dead for a very long time. Will you please get a fucking hold of yourself._

He did not, ultimately, get a fucking hold of himself.

So he’d called Allison.

“First night I’ve had off all week,” she’d announced in lieu of greeting. “If this is about your biotic vigilante thing, it can wait until tomorrow.”

Kaidan’s eyebrows had shot up. “Is that any way to talk to your ranking superior?”

“You’re not in my division, I don’t answer to you,” she’d responded through a mouthful of popcorn. “Like you give a damn about rank anyway.”

The corner of his mouth had turned up as a rush of affection filled his chest. “God forbid I interrupt your shitty vid night.”

“How I choose to spend my leisure time is none of your concern, Alenko,” she’d replied, false annoyance flooding her tone. “Besides, I’m in mourning.”

“Marion was toxic, Allison.”

“I know that, mother,” she’d bitten back, “which is why I’m sitting here stuffing my face with kettlecorn and watching tragic movies instead of serenading her window with love songs when she’s probably at some club having already forgotten I exist.” She’d given a bitter smile, and Kaidan had exhaled his entertainment. “Now what can I do for you, Kay?”

He’d only stared. “I’m not sure how to put this.”

It only took her a moment of inquisitive staring before her expression registered annoyed realization. “You cancelled the date, didn’t you,” she’d asked flatly.

Kaidan had stared, eyes wide and blank, at the screen. “I’m afraid of calling her Shepard.”

“Oh, dear,” she’d replied. “Are you ever gonna have sex that’s actually meaningful again?”

Kaidan had bristled. “Hardly my first fucking concern, Allison.”

“I know, I know. You don’t have to bite my head off every time Shepard comes up in conversation.”

Kaidan had slumped over in-frame.

“Did something happen?” she’d asked.

“No,” he’d reported sadly, then held his head between his hands. “I just had three different sources try to tell me this week that Shepard’s still alive, and now I’m losing it. That’s all.”

“What?” Allison had set down her popcorn. “Three of them?”

“Yeah. It’s probably nothing, right, but it’s--” He’d blinked hard and set a hand over his mouth before continuing. “First some random informant throws it into an unrelated conversation, apparently just to throw me off. Then some salarian I’d never seen before brings her up at the bar. Now I have this ‘unreliable intel’ from a commanding officer that someone named Shepard is potentially working for Cerberus.”

“It’s a common name,” Allison had quickly offered.

“I know,” Kaidan had replied despondently.

“This all sounds pretty tenuous, Kaidan.”

“Yeah. I know. I know. I just…” He’d run his hands through his hair. “Doesn’t it seem weird that this all happened within a few days? Why would I hear so much about Shepard all of a sudden -- especially when it’s the same rumour of an unbelievably unlikely possibility-- when no one’s brought her up to me in months?”

Allison had shaken her head and frowned emphatically. “Look. If you ask me, someone is playing a cruel joke on you, trying to undo what closure you’ve finally achieved. It sounds to me like someone’s trying to undo the Alliance brass. You’ve been doing so great lately, Kay. Leaving her tags at home when you went into work…”

“I know. But--” He’d trailed off, a sense of patheticness growing in his gut.

“But you don’t _want_ to leave them behind,” she’d finished for him.

“No. I don’t. I want...”

He’d trailed off, not sure of what to say; but Allison had said it for him.

“You want to be the one to give the tags back to her.”

Kaidan had swallowed hard. “I really want her to be alive, Allison.”

She’d stared at him; he’d looked concertedly at the wall. “Kaidan,” she’d said slowly, “this might seem like a weird question, but did you ever put the effort into changing the way you feel about Shepard?”

He’d blinked in surprise at the question. “Why the hell would I?”

Allison’s expression had slackened, her eyes closing in disbelieving realization. “Are you telling me -- I can’t believe I’m just figuring this out right now -- that even as you mourned her, you … kept loving her … anyway?”

Kaidan’s eyes had shut forcibly with sorrow. “She was gone, Allison. What difference did it make?”

He’d looked up to find Allison’s hands over her face, eyes wide and staring. “Where do I start,” she said only.

“Can you just -- I didn’t call to have you judge me.”

“I’m not judging you. I’m not. I’m just -- I’m fucking stunned, that’s all. I’m stunned. I’m stunned because usually, Kaidan, when people die -- you love them forever, sure, but--”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“But you _move on_! You turn that love into something latent, something passive, something to think of fondly, as a quiet part of you. But this -- this is still front page news for you.” Allison had cocked her head in-screen as Kaidan rested a wrist against his pounding head. “You just totally did not bother to stop loving her, at all.”

“She was dead!”

“Okay, the -- the thing is, though, that now you’re using the past tense when talking about her death. Like she’s not dead anymore.”

Kaidan had looked to the side. “Well obviously that’s ridiculous,” he’d muttered.

Allison had sighed. “Obviously.”

He’d run a hand through his hair several times in a row. “I just,” he’d tried to say, then aborted the thought; his throat had suddenly closed in on itself without warning. 

“It’s not the same, obviously,” Allison had continued, taking pity on his patheticness, “but think if I was talking about Marion this way. ‘What if she’s different now? What if the end of our relationship was some weird temporary fluke and secretly she still loves me?’ You’d tell me I was off my nut, so now, as your friend, I’m telling you the same: She’s gone, Kaidan. You gotta accept that and find a way to move on.”

Kaidan had looked at Allison, and he could tell by the shift in her expression that he must’ve looked totally wrecked. “What if I find her?” he’d rasped at last, voice cracking halfway through; but she’d only shaken her head and looked at him evenly.

“Don’t do this,” she’d said, firm and immediate. “Don’t even look. Take the closure you have and -- turn it into something other than this forever-love, because you are never going to get past Shepard this way. You’re gonna keep seeing her everywhere. You’re gonna keep giving credence to these rumours. And that -- just sounds _hard_ , Kay, it sounds so unnecessarily hard. Give yourself an easier time than that, please. Just -- don’t look for her, okay? I mean it. Just don’t look.”

They’d stared at each other, the air between them leaden, even over the communication.

“I’m going on-mission in another few days,” he’d said only, eventually, when he felt his voice was clearer. Allison sighed. “It sounds high-pressure. I probably won’t be able to send any transmissions for a while.”

Allison had smiled sadly, resignedly, and nodded as she’d swept an exasperated hand over her brow. “Be safe.” She’d pointed at him. “And think about what I said. Seriously.”

“Yeah. I -- okay.”

“And try to get laid at some point, Kaidan, with a side of conversation please.”

His mouth had quirked into a smile again, and he’d bowed his head. “Thanks, Ally,” he’d said only, and disconnected.

But oddly enough, Allison yelling at him did nothing for his seeing-Shepard-everywhere situation, except to make him feel even more pathetic on top of it all.

Things have not improved since arriving on Horizon.

It would be better, he thinks, if news transmissions would at least get through properly. But, his life being as it is, instead he's stuck with flashes of her face, caught in glimpses out of the corner of his eye through sheets of transmission static as he raids abandoned new-colony government buildings for the parts he needs to repair the turrets.

“You all right, Commander?” Lilith asks him twice a day on the average, eyeballing him with increasing suspicion when he freezes, staring, at flickering screens of uncertainty.

“Why are the transmissions like this?” he finally asks. Earlier in the morning he’d finally heard (or thought he’d heard) the word ‘Shepard’ uttered in a clipped tone by the transmission’s newscaster before the feed had cut out again. It has led to his near-constant distraction since.

“Interference,” she replies, and shrugs. “It’s been like that for a couple weeks -- communications went out around the same time the towers did. No explaining it.”

And so his poor mood continues, and in the next three weeks on the colony, nothing manages to improve it. The lasers don't improve. Information on Shepard doesn't improve. He's beginning to regret his career choice, and also every moment in his entire life, that has led him to this point.

“What’s with you?” Lilith finally asks, dropping pretense at last on the fourth week of his posting.

Her frustration serves to feed his; he drops what he's doing and shoots her an annoyed expression. _Well, let’s see -- the colonists hate me. The towers hate me. I’m starting to think the Alliance hates me, judging by the way they put me on a hostile colony with an unsolvable problem._ To combat an incoming Cerberus invasion, alone, without weaponry, when they're targeting biotics? It doesn't sound more legitimate now that he's actually here. 

Kaidan shakes his head. “Nothing. Sorry.”

Lilith barely aborts an eye-roll. A vid transmitter crackles behind her; Kaidan feels his gaze wandering to her left and tries to refocus on scavenging for the wiring he needs. “It’s not you,” he mumbles eventually.

Lilith hums. “Well, now I know that. Thanks.”

Kaidan swallows a lump of guilt that surprises him by balling in his throat. He must be terrible company, and Lilith hasn’t left his side since his arrival. “Uh, no, actually. Thank you. For your help. You’ve been … consistent. I appreciate that. God knows I can use the ally.”

Something in the crinkle of her brow suggests she may be developing a sympathy. “Are things really as bad as that?”

“Yes,” he deadpans.

Lilith’s mouth tightens into a disapproving smile. “Well, we’ve made good progress on the towers.”

“Not good enough,” he mutters. His gaze flickers again to the monitor before he hastily drops it back to his work.

But Lilith follows the gesture and registers the monitor as his focus. “That’s not the only problem. You want to get it off your chest?”

Kaidan looks carefully at the tangle of wires he's trying to pull through and tries to ignore the question, but soon looks again at Lilith. “Before the static started,” he says slowly, “you hear anything on the news about…” He pulls a face and returns to his wires. “Nevermind.”

“Okay. Well, it’s up to you.”

“Commander Shepard.” he bursts out. “Did you … hear that name … mentioned … on the vids … at all?”

Lilith shakes her head. “I’m sorry, no. But I’m bad with names.”

“You’re a neocolonial liaison officer. Your job is to be good with names.”

She grimaces. “You’re right. I’m great with names. It seemed like you could’ve used the hope. No, I don’t remember a Shepard mentioned.”

Kaidan holds her gaze for a moment, then nods, tightening his lips in what might’ve been a smile on a better day. Oddly enough, he does feel better. “Thanks,” he mumbles.

“No problem.”

He gives a frustrated burst of breath and withdraws his fingers from the mess of wires. “I’m not going to find what I need here. Try the next room?”

“You’re the boss.” She shuts off the flashlight and beckons to the door as Kaidan grabs his weapon. “Lead the way, Commander.”

Kaidan pushes through the entryway, partially blocked as it is from whatever government administrator had chosen to evacuate at the first sign of trouble without any regard for a successor, and shoulders a filing cabinet to the side while looking around for what he needs. “What are you looking for, anyway?” Lilith asks.

“You know much about tech?”

“Not really.”

“Then the details don’t matter. Basically I’m looking for a conduit that might help the tower’s controls communicate with the targeting matrix. Unless we can calibrate it properly, the lasers will shoot into space directionlessly, could take out friendlies. The towers are basically unusable without it.”

“The targeting matrix used to work…?”

“Seems that way. Whoever vandalized the towers knew what they were doing.”

Kaidan sets his weapon down again and waits for Lilith to shine the flashlight down so he can better see what he's doing, but she's standing in the doorway, perplexed. “Vandalism.”

“Yeah. You knew that.”

“I guess so. We’ve been trying to address the communications problem under the assumption it’s just casual interference.” Anxiety grips her features. “If we’re being intentionally cut off from the rest of the galaxy, and someone cut out our communications and our weapons intentionally, then we have a mole.”

Kaidan nods seriously and places his hand on his rifle instinctively. “Seems likely.”

“Someone is actively sabotaging our attempts to get back online.”

“Probably.”

“Don’t act so concerned.”

“I am concerned. I guess I assumed this was already being dealt with.”

“Well, it’s not.”

“Well, that’s a problem.”

“Isn’t that why you were called in?”

“My orders are to get weapons back online.”

Kaidan pauses to refresh his memory on what, exactly, his orders in fact are. He hadn’t been debriefed on the planet’s problems with communications; he's there to re-establish weapon functionality and follow up leads on Cerberus. This sounds like Cerberus handiwork, all right, but Lilith has a point that Horizon is up the creek and without a paddle without either functioning defenses or communications.

“Commander?”

“Er, sorry.” He returns to reality. “Do you have someone on Horizon who would know what they were looking at if they knew they were looking for intentional sabotage in a communications panel?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have at least two people who would know?”

“No.”

“Then either that’s your mole or you have someone here who is lying about who they are. Follow up on your tech expert and then start running background checks. Do it now. Point me towards the comm panels; I’ll come take a look and see what I can figure out. Then I’ll send you to get the parts we need to fix it and I’ll come back here and keep looking for the conduit for the targeting matrix. I suddenly get the feeling we’re running out of time.”

Kaidan grabs his weapon off the table and nods out the door; Lilith turns and leads the way out of the administration building, pocketing the flashlight and moving quickly.

Above them, the monitors flicker on and off as they leave the building: _“...Report … escape…”_

“Must be some kind of jamming hardware,” Lilith mutters. “This way. I’ll show you the panels first. I can start my personnel check from the communications building anyway…”

Kaidan follows Lilith’s gesture and removes the panel covers, immediately being faced with a mess of wires that definitely doesn't look right. “Shit. Okay. This is gonna take a while to figure out. They did a good job of making this look like a hackjob.”

“Evidence of sabotage?”

“It would be hard to see without training, but yeah, definitely. Is there a control computer around here?”

“Behind me.” Lilith, still bent over her computer and rapidly entering her login, kicks a metal cover behind her. Kaidan stands and opens it, spending a few moments tapping away at the interface before letting out a low groan.

“Gonna need your help for a minute. Can you go over there and reach all the way back to the primary port, near the centre, and push the connector in until it flashes, then hold for ten seconds? That’s perfect -- need the system to reboot.”

Soon the monitors all power down; there are a few moments of blissful silence before the static kicks in again as everything flickers back to life. “Turn it off and then turn it back on again?” Lilith smiles.

“It won’t work, but it will tell me something about how the hardware is working and whether there’s any danger in pulling everything out and starting from--”

Kaidan cuts off as Shepard’s image appears suddenly on the transmission monitor.

“Holy shit!” Lilith mutters; but Kaidan's paying no attention to her.

The same two-second clip loops over and over: a woman, who appears for all intents and purposes to be Shepard -- except for a bit of wear and tear -- jogs through a glass hallway in full body armour with a rifle strapped to her back. A turian he could swear looks like Garrus and an unidentified human trail behind her. The text in the bottom of the screen tells him it's security footage, dated two days earlier.

Just as suddenly as the monitors had flickered on, the audio static gives way to broken but audible commentary:

_”--footage acquired following the terrorist hijacking of Purgatory, a-- [ktch] --rian prison ship, clearly shows a very much alive Commander Shepard-- [ktttcch] --facility with known a biotic extremist--”_

“Fuck,” Kaidan hears himself mutter. “It’s true.” He's torn between running as fast as he can and collapsing where he stands, and settles for standing perfectly still. His feet seem to root into the ground, even as the feed collapses in front of his eyes. “It’s true. It’s true.”

“That the Shepard you were looking for?” Lilith asks, realizing Kaidan has lost his focus on communications.

But Kaidan doesn’t reply. He's too busy trying to will his heart out of his throat.

For all the time he’d spent hoping … it turns out that he had never really believed.

Until now.

Shepard is alive.


	5. Citadel - 2186 || Vancouver - 2185

  


**// C I T A D E L --** 2186 **//**

 

Allison stays with him until Chakwas finally comes by, hours later. He doesn’t understand why Allison won’t let him read his own chart until Chakwas tells him: his implant got rattled by the impact. He was unconscious for as long as he was because his brain was being gently fried by electrical impulses in the hours before they were able to get the neural splint in place.

“I should tell you, Major, it sure is good to see you’re still with us,” she tells him. “And talking, at that. You’ve either been very lucky or very unlucky, I’m not sure which.”

The blood is pounding in Kaidan’s ears. “Um. Yeah. Um, I mean … unlucky how, exactly? Just that I got beat up by a Cerberus robot?”

Chakwas surprises him by giving a gentle chuckle. “Cerberus does have a habit of staying with us, doesn’t it? The perils of having associated with Commander Shepard, I suppose.”

Kaidan winces, then does it again with the wave of pain that hits him after the first. “Oh, my god.”

“Yes, Major, it’s best to rest. It’s clear you’re on the mend, but we’ll have to run some more tests to ascertain the extent of the damage.”

“Damage? _Permanent_ damage?”

“I’m afraid that’s possible.” Chakwas closes the chart and gives Kaidan a sympathetic look. “Your concussion was moderate, and from that you’ll make a full recovery; your shoulder was a right mess when you came in, though that looks good too. But I warned you years ago that without care, your implant may cause you difficulty in the future. That blow to the head was all that was needed to trigger all those difficulties at once. As I said, I’m not sure as to the extent of the damage; it may be that the worst of what you experience is just fatigue, confusion, migraines, slow responsiveness...”

Kaidan stares. “Oh, well, if that’s all.”

Chakwas purses her lips and replaces his chart at the foot of the bed. “Try not to think about it. Concentrate on getting on the mend, avoid using your biotics at _all_ costs while your brain heals, and you’ll most likely be able to return to service.”

“Most likely?!” Kaidan struggles to sit up; Allison stills him with a firm hand on his chest.

“Thank you, doctor,” she says to Chakwas; and Chakwas nods and gives Kaidan’s uninjured shoulder a quick squeeze.

“You’re in good care, Kaidan,” she tells him; then she leaves the room, with a quick smile at Allison.

“This is some bullshit, Allison,” Kaidan says as the door slides shut. “If she thinks for a second I’m just going to lie here while the entire universe is going to shit--”

“Listen,” Allison says, forcing him to lie back down on the bed. “You weren’t supposed to wake up, all right? Your idiot stubbornness continues to save your ass. So if I know anything about you, it’s that you’re going to get on the mend and be back in space way faster than any doctor could suspect of you. But not if you don’t _shut up_ , get some rest, and stop trying to crawl out of bed when your literal brain has gotten literally fried by the same bullshit organization you’ve been predicting has been out to get you this entire time, all right?” 

Allison’s eyes are very hard and very red, and Kaidan is forced to quail under their gaze. “If you want to get back to Shepard,” she continues, “and I know you do -- you have to chill. Right now. And heal properly. Okay?”

“Allison,” Kaidan begins.

“Don’t start,” she answers.

“I was going to say ‘okay’.”

Allison opens her mouth to argue, but stops short as she registers his words. “Oh. Okay. Good!”

“Under one condition.”

“There it is.”

“Get me my files on the kids.”

Allison rolls her eyes and pinches her nose with vexation. “Can you relax for just a _few_ days. Please.”

“I won’t move,” Kaidan placates. “I’ll submit to all the tests, I’ll get plenty of rest, I’ll ‘heal properly’. I’ll just also make some calls and make sure everyone’s safe and taken care of, is that too much to ask?”

“Everyone’s safe and taken care of.”

“After the Reaper attack? How do you know?”

“Because I checked on them when I thought you’d died on Earth.”

“Thanks.”

“Please, like you didn’t think the same of me. Point is, they’re fine. Your whole Biotic division is with the Third Fleet at Arcturus. They’ll be ready for your command when you’re ready, or they can be subsumed into another unit if needed.”

“Okay… but…”

“You want your files for some special secret bullshit anyway, right?”

“Mmmaybe.” Kaidan clucks his tongue as Allison rolls her eyes. “Don’t do that. Please? Just give me something to do while I lay helplessly in bed, alone with my head injury, to stare down the possible end to my career, by myself....”

“God, you’re just a fountain of optimism.” Allison gets up and pulls a PDA from her bag. “Here. I thought you’d ask me for it, just try not to overdo it, okay?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Kaidan takes the device from her and tries for a smile.

“Don’t do that, you look like my presence here is causing you physical pain.” Allison stands and moves to stuff her belongings back in her bag, throwing him a suspicious gaze as she does it. “You gonna send Shepard a message?”

Kaidan opens his mouth, then closes it; he hadn’t considered this. “Uh, maybe. I guess. I, uh … why would I? I mean, I guess. I guess? I could do that, yeah.”

Allison looks at him with artificial concern. “You okay? Chip misfiring?”

“No, just the regular kind of Shepard misfire.” He smiles at her grimly. “I mean… she’s busy.”

“She brought you here, and Doctor Michel said she was here visiting after that.” Allison shrugs. “With all that’s going down on Palaven, it’s possible she’ll be back -- once she figures out there’s not much there to salvage either.”

Kaidan winces. “Harsh, Allison.”

“Point is, the Council sent her there, I doubt she’ll be there for long, and it feels like she’s gonna wanna come see how you are.”

“Well … I dunno. I kind of yelled at her on Mars.”

“Of course you did. That seems like a reasonable thing to have done in that moment. Didn’t you yell at her when you went to see her over the holidays, too?”

“Did I?? I don’t remember … must be the head injury.”

“Nice try.”

“I wanted the truth, Ally, same as always.”

“You pick your moments, that’s all I’m saying.” She picks up her bag and gives him an expression at once firm and sympathetic. “If you do get in touch with her -- and I know you, Kay, so I think you will -- try having a conversation with her, okay? A normal conversation. Can you do that for me, Kaidan? Can you try?”

“I’ll _try_ ,” he deadpans; and she smiles and reaches a hand out to his cheek.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” she tells him.

“I’m glad I’m not dead, too,” he replies solemnly.

Allison turns to go, but then pauses in the doorway as it opens. “Uh … one more thing.” She steps back inside and turns to face Kaidan as the doors close behind her. “The name of the turian you served with under Shepard … what was it again?”

“Garrus,” Kaidan answers. “Vakarian. Why? This some kind of memory test?”

“Hmm. No. Not per se. Just, um … be careful when surfing the net about Shepard, okay? In fact, maybe don’t surf the net about Shepard for a while. Maybe wait a few days.”

“Well, now I _have_ to know. What’s Garrus got to do with it?”

Allison stares at Kaidan, then sighs and takes the PDA from him. “Promise me you’ll keep your biotics under wraps.” She hands the device back to him.

The article is from the Alliance News Network, written by Diana Allers: _’Menae À Deux?’: Alliance Hero Commander Shepard in Turian Space, But No Word on Former Lover Vakarian’s Status_

“It could mean nothing,” Allison is saying. “You know how Allers is.”

But Kaidan is resigned to staring at the article with his mouth hung open, and Allison opts to pat him gently on the shoulder before turning to leave him in peace.

With that, Kaidan was left to lie helplessly in bed, with his head injury, alone -- except for the brand new knowledge that she and Garrus had gone to clown town while working under Cerberus. 

As his head pounds suddenly harder with the force of keeping his temper under wraps, Kaidan decides he preferred unconsciousness.

  


  


**// V A N C O U V E R --** 2185 **//**

 

Upon returning from Horizon, Anderson threatens to knock him unconscious and put him in a shuttle himself if Kaidan doesn't take a bit of shore leave. So he takes a week to visit his parents. Begrudgingly.

It's winter in Vancouver, and his parents' apartment feels cramped with the clutter of retirement. He’s not used to shore leave anymore; it’s too much sitting in one place, too much conversation about the appallingly mundane, too much pretending everything is fine and that the world isn’t falling apart around them. It's only two days of leaning over the balcony of the retirement high-rise, trying to talk shop over beers with his dad and feeling like a horse’s ass for having to play the “it’s classified” card with his own father, before he has to borrow his dad's mid-life crisis-mobile and get away for a few hours. 

He speeds around the city for a while before -- having found no solace -- making his way to the foot of Mt. Seymour. He parks at the bottom and dons his running shoes, hoping to burn off a few thousand calories and a few thousand memories to boot, and set off. 

Mud spatters satisfyingly over his shoes and legs as he runs the mountain trails. It is nothing if not a workout. The calories get gone pretty damn fast.

But even as he's throwing his shoes into the trunk at the end of the run, the same images as ever flash through his head as ever, as though to remind him that he’s standing still in Vancouver while god knows how many colonies are being sacked.

It’s three calls to Anderson for updates and another two days of mountain marathons before he realizes that he’s not going to be able to outrun his feelings; and Kaidan, having done only this since he was 17 to process his emotions, is bereft of other ideas. So faced with the alternative of both overthinking _and_ not moving, he keeps trying to outrun the feed playing over and over in his head: Shepard, standing before him on Horizon, admitting to working with Cerberus, her very presence a testament to having been alive this whole time and _never sending word_.

Running is still the first thing -- the only thing -- he reaches for when he doesn’t know what to do with himself. It keeps the biotics from building under his skin. But it does not, he rediscovers quickly, actually allow him to escape his problems.

He’d first tracked mud through these trails after Jump Zero, when he was seventeen years old and looking for something to distract him from having single-handedly shut down what might’ve been the only place in the galaxy that had good potential for human biotics. He’d been trying to run from having lost his best friend, then; trying to escape from having killed a man. But then as now, even as he’d run, he’d still thought of Vyrnnus, dead on the ground; still thought of Rahna’s expression, split halfway between horror and terror as she backed away from him as though he’d become the bully he’d killed; still thought of his father’s words in his ears, promising that he still had the future he felt convinced he’d blown.

And how little has changed. Another seventeen years on and he’s back here, still running the North Shore mountains; still trying and failing to forget the future he thinks he’s blown; still thinking that if he _just runs a little faster_ , the feeling of defeat will become easier to bear.

Instead -- then as now -- he thinks, as he's running, of the Collector swarm, descending from the sky while he'd shot uselessly into the air; thinks of the thousands of people he hadn’t saved, only able to watch in horror while trapped in stasis; thinks of Shepard’s expression, split halfway between concerned and betrayed as he’d retreated back into the heart of the camp when she'd refused to take responsibility for herself.

And as he drives home, as he tromps into his parents' cramped condo, Kaidan wishes for another seventeen miles or seventeen years to try and forget it all again.

“Feel better, dear?” his mother asks serenely upon his emergence from the requisite shower, handing him an entire pot of pasta and patting his face affectionately.

“Marginally,” he lies. 

He eats his food and tries not to feel so young. He tries to stop playing the same damn thing in his head again and again, as though thinking of Shepard will change the outcome of their encounter. 

He counts down the hours before he can go for another run.

Eventually -- though he's convinced the odds are against him -- Kaidan makes it through the week. He makes it through the constant interrogations from his parents -- the intensive psychoanalysis from his mother who will never stop believing he takes on too much; the career advice his father gives him, not picking up that Kaidan is a sentinel and not a soldier and that their paths within the Alliance are bound to diverge; the running; the memories; the failure of the running to dislodge the memories. 

He survives it all, the same way he survived Horizon; Virmire; Jump Zero; the Normandy. 

If there's one thing he's good at, he decides, it's surviving.

When the week is finally over -- when he's declared himself _survived_ \-- he takes the opportunity handed to him when his parents leave for a weekend trip to their Summerland orchard and books a shuttle out to Halfmoon Bay.

He rents out a house as far from civilization as he can find, just for the weekend; and from the moment he walks through the door, he feels better. He runs in the rain to the grocery store, runs in the rain home with a three-kilo pack, and then stands on the covered porch and eats his avocado toast, rainwater dripping off him and puddles trailing behind. 

The rainforest is his favourite climate. Shepard used to mock him for his hatred of both hot and cold weather -- _”Are you ever happy?” she’d teased_ \-- but this is what he loved: raining for days at a time, with even the winters holding at around 5 degrees celsius; trees green and lush year-round; the smell of life inescapable, omnipresent.

But even though he feels better -- even though this is the exact kind of weather that calms him -- Kaidan couldn't help but remember, standing there in the rain, all the memories he lacks. 

”Someday,” he’d told her once, years ago, when they'd been bundled in bed and talking about a future that would never arrive, “I’ll take you to Vancouver. Then you’ll see what **real** weather’s supposed to look like.”

”Riiiiight,” she’d replied. “All the other weather is fake, then."

”It’s aspiring to be what Vancouver naturally is.”

”A soakfest?”

”A -- no! My god. Imagine if I said that about Mindoir. You’d murder me in my sleep."

Shepard had given a grim smile. “Mindoir is its own hell.”

Kaidan’s expression had faltered; he’d brought her closer to compensate for his own idiocy. “Are you suggesting Vancouver’s weather is hellish?” he’d muttered in her ear.

She had set her fingers deep in his back, leaned her face into his chest, and sighed. “Ten months of rain is good for no one, Alenko.”

”You’re wrong.”

”Pardon me? What was that?”

”Now it’s settled. Someday I’ll show you.”

So they’d planned to take a vacation together, to be implemented after six months in geth space.

And then she’d died. So that was the end of that.

Now he’s standing here, in the rain, alone. And she isn’t dead anymore.

Kaidan tears inside to change his shoes; grabs his rainjacket; and, at last recognizing that his legs have reached their natural limit for impact for now, opts to go for a walk.

He’s been dreaming a lot lately. It’s the same dream, recurring, hitting him about twice a week since the first time he’d heard the rumours Shepard was alive. Allison calls it an “alternate future” -- a dream in more than one sense, both wonderful and terrible, and staying with him as vividly as any of the memories he'd been trying to outrun.

In this dream, the Reaper threat is defeated and Shepard is both alive and herself again. She’s never worked for Cerberus, and she’s miraculously forgiven Kaidan for losing his temper on Horizon. It’s five years in the future and they’ve retired from their respective posts on the Normandy, settled into desk jobs in Vancouver, working 12 hour days during the week and retreating to some cedar home on the Coast over long, long weekends. They sleep in; then they wake up to slow and deep kisses, or to the other long since awake and reading the newspaper, fingers curled loosely over a coffee cup on their left. They take walks along wooded mountain trails and rocky beaches in December drizzle and September sunshine, away in both body and spirit from the city, tucked away in the only hope of privacy they can get anymore, away from the demands of career and media -- just themselves, the two of them alone, without crisis or threat of death.

Some nights, he dreams of idle conversation while curled up in blankets around a wood-burning fireplace; other times, he dreams about discussions of children while the two of them lay folded into each other in their living room at sunrise. He dreams of staring out over a distant sea in the evenings, speaking in voices low with contentment as the sun breaks through overhead cloud in sharp orange streaks; he dreams of talking strategy and ops over breakfast, of talking about breeds of dog over dinner, of talking about what time they should catch a shuttle in to work in the morning.

Each time, he dreams of a life -- of a future -- too real, too vivid, too detailed for him to have consciously imagined on his own. He would never have allowed himself to think of this. He would never have been able to get so invested in it without feeling ill enough to stop.

“Are you _sure_?” Allison had asked him, eyebrows steepled together high on her forehead, when he’d told her about it after getting back from Horizon.

“Yeah, Ally, I’m sure,” Kaidan had replied, voice muffled against the table where he’d set himself facedown midway through explaining himself.

“You’re sure this is a _dream_.”

“Yup.”

“You go to sleep and this is what you see. This happens to you. On a regular basis.”

Kaidan had raised his head from the table and set a hand over his mouth. “Yes.” He felt queasy even explaining himself.

“Wow,” she’d said again, leaning back in her chair. “Your subconscious _really_ hates you.”

The bar had been abuzz with voices, and Kaidan had shut his eyes against the comfort of the white noise. “I know,” he’d graveled against his fingers. “It’s … a situation.”

There’s a lot about _the situation_ that he knows. He knows, for example, that -- despite everything -- he still loves Shepard ... or at least some version of her. He knows that even if that version of her still exists -- and he’s not sure she does -- he, Kaidan, wouldn’t necessarily be what she’s looking for. He knows that even if she is still the Shepard he’d thought he’d known -- on the offchance she did someday still want to be with him after all this shit that’s happened with them; on the offchance she did want the desk job, the house, the family, the dream -- that they both still have to survive the coming war, after fighting it separately.

He knows that, even if they beat every odd against them -- if she is still the Shepard he knew, if they somehow both survive -- that it may still never happen for any number of reasons. They have careers that could diverge at any moment. What’s more, she’s always been a force of nature all on her own; she’s in perpetual motion, and he knows she may never be able to give that up, may never want to -- or even be able to -- ‘settle down’. He knows marriage was always the furthest thing from relevant to her; he knows seeing the same sun rise over the same planet every day may never have the appeal for her that it has for him.

But he also knows that every night that he has this dream, he wakes up and grips the sheets -- forces himself to still among tremors, forces his breath to regulate, inconsolable as he always is to find himself alone and surrounded by walls of steel and concrete upon waking. He knows his heart pounds furiously, as though it had been intentionally trying to wake him from the worst of his nightmares. He knows he touches his fingers to his lips to see if he can still feel her there. 

They’re the only mornings he truly feels awake anymore, these mornings when he enjoys what sleep has to offer more than he enjoys being awake; and on the days that follow the dreams, these feelings -- of warmth; of love; of belonging -- stick in his chest like regular memories, integrating themselves into his system and affecting his judgment. 

Worse still -- after a while he'd begun to realize that, for every second they seared under his skin with the flagrancy of their impossibility, they were also giving him an ideal to fight for.

And then he'd started consciously fighting for it.

This impossible thing. 

Because of some fucking goddamn bullshit _recurring dream_.

Kaidan comes back to himself in the present, where he's standing in the rain with his hands in his pockets. He has stopped in the middle of the street and begun staring at an empty lot, for reasons he's initially not clear on.

The lot is for sale.

It’s awkwardly slanted, positioned on a hill, fir trees rooting severally and deeply into the soil; but he can see the ocean in glimpses through the branches even from the street. He bets the view would be even better from the middle of the lot, and that with a bit of practice he could probably uproot a few of the trees with a well-placed biotic pulse. He bets that if he planned the house right, he could build a room that was angled both southeast and southwest -- something that caught both morning and evening sun, if only in fractured slivers through the branches. It would be more than alright to peer over the treetops just to see the barest line of horizon, he thinks -- to be able to notice when spring had sprung and the deciduous foliage had suddenly made the ocean view a lot more hard to find -- instead of needing to see the horizon in full, as he had always tended to in his dream.

It’s hardly the perfect image his mind has generated for him ... but he could compromise. It’s something he would make work.

 _This isn’t going to happen,_ whispers a voice in his mind.

“I know,” he mutters against it.

He stares at the For Sale sign, and waits.

Raindrops congeal and fall from his hood with increasing ferocity, hitting his shoulders like projectiles, as he shoves his hands deeper into the pockets of his windbreaker. It’s getting cold, especially for July; the light of day is dying behind him, dusk obscuring the lay of the land.

But still, he waits.

He closes his eyes, after a while, and listens to the rain patter around his ears. He's unable to prevent himself from imagining the house he might build. He begins by imagining someone else in there with him -- first, it's Shepard; then, it's some faceless figure who isn’t. Then he imagines himself in it alone, sipping coffee by himself in the early morning, one hand shoved in the pocket of his sweatpants as the sun breaks over the horizon.

In his mind’s eye, he feels peaceful -- not, for once, like the world is weighing on him to get his shit together or get out of dodge. He realizes he _can_ imagine it as a world without Shepard, and that he wants it still; he realizes that he _can_ control the dream for his own sake, that the power behind it lies within him -- that it doesn’t depend on her.

He opens his eyes, memorizes the contact number on the sign, and walks the slow hour back to his rented cottage.

The next morning, he buys the lot.

Kaidan sits still for the rest of his shore leave.


	6. 2186 - Citadel || 2185 - Vancouver

  


  


**// C I T A D E L --** 2186 **//**

 

By the time Kaidan finally finds success in negotiating his release from hospital, Arcturus is confirmed destroyed.

Kaidan spends a day tearing through the resources he has available only to find a majority of them destroyed or out of contact thanks to the Reaper invasion. Eventually, after a meeting with an old duct rat contact still working within the Citadel, he is able to discover enough about his squad to know they’re alive: in deep cover, based somewhere on a Cerberus-controlled planet, apparently trying to lend a hand to liberation forces as Cerberus kept trying to gain access to intel they had no right to take.

Kaidan pays the kid, then breathes a sigh of relief and slumps against the wall of the alley -- lets the shots of pain make their way through his temples until they decrease at the same rate as his adrenaline.

Then he sits down and considers what comes next. 

The Citadel isn’t a bad place to be, all things considered. It’s a way from the action, which he admits he needs in the face of his recent encounter with near-death; and it offers a huge hub of diplomatic resources that Kaidan hasn’t had access to before becoming a Spectre.

Plus, with the Normandy not exactly an option … he’s not sure how he’d re-enter space at this point if he wanted to.

Shepard had come back, once, when he’d still been laid up -- or, more accurately, he’d sent her a message and she’d come at his request. It had been a turnaround of only two days, and he’d felt more than a little stupid, having her interrupt her mission just to come visit him… especially when the conversation had turned so quickly to whether or not her affair with Garrus had involved cheating on him, technically.

“You have a problem,” Allison had told him over the comm as he’d recounted the discussion.

“No,” Kaidan had said, but then fell short of anything further to add.

“You actually said ‘you cheated on me’?”

“Not in as many words.”

“And she said?”

“She … well …” He buried his face in his hands. “I think she primarily said she never meant to hurt me?”

Allison gave a surprised burst of laughter. “You’re kidding.”

“And then she may have indicated whether or not the affair was still ongoing, but I…”

“But you were too full of self-righteous indignation at the fact that she’d ever gotten down with a turian in the first place to notice?”

“I … well...”

“Mmhmm. Do you remember at all if she pointed out that she was dead and that that totally officially voided your relationship, orrr…”

“Allison, I can’t do this again.”

“You would not have called me if you didn’t want context, and I’m telling you--”

“Okay, I get it. I’m an idiot. Intrepid insight as usual, thanks, Al.” He’d hung up then, not calling her back until the following day after Shepard had returned for another visit:

“What now?” Allison asked, distracted with something on another screen.

“Well, I might have told Shepard I was still all about her and wanted her back if she was up for it,” he’d said, all in one breath, clutching nervously at the hem of his blanket with his free hand. “ _Soooo…_ ”

Allison had taken one long, blank look at Kaidan through the screen. “There is a _war on._ ”

“I know that, that’s why I’m calling. I need you to find me a posting on another ship, because I _definitely_ can’t go back to the--”

Allison had hit the ‘end call’ button in the middle of his sentence without another word.

So, yeah. The Normandy _wasn’t_ so much an option.

So Kaidan took the opportunity to do as much as he could on the Citadel with the new resources he had. It was almost as though the universe was offering him exactly what he needed to keep up with the war against the Reapers and carry on his investigation into Cerberus’ operations without being demoted for subordination: now he had Spectre authority, which meant unchecked ability to tap into any resource and data bank he felt he required in order to help keep peace in the universe.

In the end, he’s pretty surprised he ever once thought to turn down the appointment.

Until it’s Shepard who’s pointing a gun in his face.

Given that he’s spent weeks specifically researching Cerberus and coming up with no indication of any forthcoming attack on the Citadel, Kaidan is already feeling like a chump, even if he had been able to dig up enough information on what they might have potentially been after to have had enough foresight to aid in the protection of Council representatives. And then Shepard shows up in the middle of it, because _of course she does_ , and points a gun at Udina -- and then at him.

Kaidan hesitates.

And then he’s the one to shoot Udina himself.

Some Spectre he turned out to be.

But in the hours that follow, as he sits in a dark room with a cold compress on his head and runs the events of the day over and over in his mind, the moment he catches on the most often is the way Shepard looked when she was staring down her gun at him: like she was equally as fucked up about the fact that he was aiming his weapon at her as he felt about the fact that she was aiming her weapon at him.

And yet -- she also looked like she really would have shot him. If she’d had to.

Just as he’d have shot her. Even as he loved her in the way that he did. If he’d had to.

So maybe he made an all right Spectre after all.

It’s with this thought in mind that he packs his few remaining belongings into a sack and heads off in the direction of Dock D24.

 _I better not regret this,_ he says to himself as he walks, trying to figure out how to trust his instincts in the midst of a flurry of conflicting messages and a hard time figuring out whether he's meant to stay away from Shepard after all the dumb shit he's pulled; but just as it had the night before when he'd made the call to turn on Udina, Shepard’s voice resonates in his head with the clarity of a person whose gut has never led her wrong in her life:

_You won’t._

  


  


**// V A N C O U V E R --** 2185 **//**

 

It’s morning, and Kaidan is nursing a headache. It's more common than not in the mornings lately, and Allison is on him about getting his implant checked out, but he always manages to keep it out of his mind until the morning rolls around again, and that's always too early to do anything about it.

He pops a couple painkillers and takes his time in settling behind the desk, not looking forward to the day full of paperwork ahead of him. If he leans back in his chair and kicks his legs up onto the desk to rest his eyes, it’s only for a second, he tells himself, to clear his head before settling into work.

But, soon realizing he’s falling asleep, he reaches blindly for his PDA and cracks an eye open just enough to be able to scan the headlines. He can’t be caught napping on the job, after all, if he wants this promotion to go through, so a half-assed endeavor to at least _look_ like he’s doing something productive would be--

 _Unidentified Cerberus ship exits Omega-4 Relay intact: Alliance_ , reads the top story.

Kaidan’s feet hit the ground hard as he leans over the PDA, suddenly wide awake.

> Top Alliance officials are meeting Monday morning to discuss reports of an unidentified vessel that ejected uncloaked from the Omega-4 relay early Saturday.
> 
> “Council scientists were in Omega space looking into unusual readings emitted by the Omega-4 relay when the relay engaged and the ship appeared,” Councilor Donnel Udina said in a press release.
> 
> “It was visible for mere seconds before cloaking itself and escaping our ships’ sensors. Apart from some obvious damage and a clearly visible Cerberus logo, no identifying features were noted.”
> 
> Udina added, “There is no doubt the vessel was of human construction.”
> 
> Sol Gazette researchers could not confirm what lies on the other side of the Omega-4 relay. Reports suggest Collectors are able to use the Omega-4 relay without harm to their ships, but no other ship has ever returned from any attempt to use the relay.
> 
> Over four dozen ships have been reported missing, presumed destroyed, after attempted forays into whatever lies on the other side in the last three decades. 
> 
> The unidentified Cerberus vessel may have answers to the questions researchers have been asking for years.
> 
> “We are endeavoring to track down the vessel, but Cerberus leaders are as elusive as ever--

Kaidan starts in his chair as the PDA chimes with an update notification.

> UPDATE: 0745h: Reports are coming in of a heavily damaged Cerberus vessel docking at Alliance HQ at Earth’s Vancouver port this hour. The crew have surrendered and were taken into Alliance custody pending interrogation. No word on charges being laid. There have been many rumours about the occupants of the ship, but nothing has been confirmed. A press conference has been scheduled for 1030h. We will notify Gazette readers as the updates happen.

Kaidan stares at the update and sets an unsettled hand over his mouth. On the one hand, there’s absolutely no way Shepard could have done it.

But on the other hand… Shepard might have actually done it.

At the same time that he rises from his chair and moves toward the door, it opens prematurely. Kaidan leaps back, still strung out from the shock of the article, and is surprised to find it's Allison leaning breathlessly in. “Shepard’s been arrested,” she blurts without anything resembling a formal greeting; and Kaidan blinks slowly to let the information catch up with him.

“What?” he says anyway.

“Come with me,” she orders. He stumbles awkwardly after her into the corridor.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, jogging to catch up with her. Allison's in her dress uniform, which means she's here on legal business. "Aren't you still stationed at the Citadel?"

"Admiral Anderson requested me Saturday."

"Anderson--?"

"Shut up, Kaidan. The SSV Normandy requested permission to dock a few hours ago.”

Incredulity strikes his features, and he stumbles over his own feet. “I -- what? Um, pardon?”

“They were initially stalled, particularly since their pilot was grounded by the Alliance after the first Normandy crashed--”

“Joker??”

“I’m being serious, Kay.”

“No -- was the pilot’s name Jeff Moreau?”

“Uh, yes, I believe so.”

Kaidan blinks. “We need to seriously investigate the possibility that time has folded in on itself.”

“Are you making a joke?”

“Allison, this -- doesn’t make any sense.”

She stops dead in the middle of the lift and aggressively hits a button to descend. “The ship was registered to Cerberus," she says flatly once the doors close, staring at him evenly.

He groans; the connections slide into place in his head. “Okay, now I’m getting it,” he mutters. The lift doors open behind him, and he trips over the lip of the floor trying to keep up with Allison’s ambitious pace. “Any chance this is the same ship that came out of the Omega-4 relay?”

Allison hooks a hand around his elbow and pulls him down a side-corridor. “They were eventually allowed to dock because Shepard and her pilot managed to convince Alliance command that they were there to surrender both themselves and the ship,” she clips, all business. “The crew was severely depleted. Scans revealed there were seven organic life forms aboard, all human: the pilot, five who wished to defect from Cerberus, and Commander Shepard. It’s unclear what happened to anyone else aboard, but it seems likely there were dozens of others.”

“No turians?”

“No.”

Kaidan grunts. “They probably let them off somewhere,” he mutters.

“They’ll be court-martialled,” she shrugs. “It’ll be hard to track down anyone affiliated with Cerberus, but we might be able to drag a turian or two in. Do you know of any who may have been involved?”

Kaidan stops dead and reaches out to stop Allison, realizing suddenly that he’s juggling his rights haphazardly with his friendship. “Am I under investigation?” he asks quietly, leaning in.

Allison hesitates. “Not yet,” she says honestly.

“But it’s likely.”

“You’ll certainly be called on to testify about Shepard through the trial process, and may be interrogated at some point, yes.” She cocks her head and starts slowly off down the corridor again, leaving Kaidan rushing to catch up as she descends down the nearest stairwell. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about for the latter, unless you’ve been dishonest with me about the nature of your contact with her since you discovered she’s alive.”

Kaidan shakes his head. “No. But ... the trial?”

“I imagine you’ll be asked about her character, mostly, and whether you know anything about her use of the Omega-4 relay or affiliation with Cerberus. There’s a lot that isn’t clear. She’ll be tried by the Alliance for defecting, and there may be some additional charges.”

“Like what? There’s no charge for Spectre defection ... She just gets her status stripped, which actually already happened when she died -- or, ‘died,’ or whatever...”

“There’s more to it,” Allison says firmly, coming to a stop outside the detention centre. “This has repercussions for humanity as a species. The first and only human Spectre falls off the map for two years and shows up again working for a human terrorist organization? Not to mention that she’s likely going to make a case for having achieved the impossible with the galaxy’s most destructive relay. Even before we get to the rumours about--” Allison jolts suddenly and stares at Kaidan as though checking to see if he’d predicted her next words. “Her testimony won’t be believed,” she concludes with a sense of finality.

“Rumours? Rumours about what?”

She waves an annoyed hand, as though shooing away the complications associated with the situation. “The Alliance and the Council will see-saw back and forth with this until what’s now a mess becomes a catastrophe,” she continues, clearly not keen to expand. “I’d be surprised if the trial was finished inside of a year, and you can bet it’ll be a high priority at that.”

“Okay,” he says thickly, headache flaring suddenly at his temple. “Um, who is her legal counsel?”

“There’s been a team of us assigned to the whole Normandy crew."

"Us. You?"

Allison purses her lips. "I suspect Shepard might be beyond my position of seniority.”

“Introduce yourself to her,” Kaidan says immediately. “Sit down and just listen. She’ll see that you’re trustworthy and ask for you.”

"She's a criminal."

"She's decorated as all hell is what she is. She'll still have some sway around here."

“It’s not just the Cerberus charges we’re concerned about here, Kay,” Allison reminds him through tight lips. “Given the chatter I’m hearing, I don’t think either me or Shepard have much control over the situation.”

“Right.” He blinks heavily and lets his gaze slide out of focus, eyes falling to a spot on the floor by her side.

“Commander,” Allison says briskly, catching his eye with hers. “Are you with me?”

“Yeah. There’s just--” He peers at the doors into the detention centre. “I honestly thought I might get away with never seeing her again.”

Allison looks at him as though he’d just grown an additional head. “Remind me to give you a smack upside the head when we’re not in uniform for that catastrophic lie.”

“Is that an order, Lieutenant?”

“Oh, please, you’ve been following my orders for the past ten minutes. It’s a little late for that.”

Kaidan furrows his brow and crosses his arms as he suddenly twigs on where she’s brought him. “So are we colleagues or friends right now, Lieutenant?”

She purses her lips and blinks at him sympathetically. “Kaidan,” she says slowly.

“If you’re asking me to perform a professional duty, Proulx, use the proper form of address. Otherwise drop the BS and tell me why the hell you brought me here.”

Allison sighs, some combination of frustrated and compassionate, and squares her shoulders. “Commander Alenko,” she begins, facetiousness biting into her tone.

Kaidan shuts his eyes and pinches at his nose with firm fingers. “You can’t be serious.”

“The Alliance may need your help in performing an interrogation on a prisoner we just brought in from the SSV Normandy.”

“Absolutely not, Lieutenant Proulx.”

“Given your personal relationship with Commander Shepard--”

“I can’t believe this. Do you understand how wildly inappropriate it is--”

“--it is the professional opinion of her legal team that your presence may help provide an environment of trust for her--”

“--for you to use personal information told to you in confidence by a ranking superior--”

“--which will ultimately make interrogation altogether more pleasant for all involved.”

“--for professional leverage--”

“We need her to _tell_ us what happened before it comes out from a higher authority.”

“I’m not doing your lawyerly dirty work.”

Allison exhales aggressively through her nose. “I’m trying to do what’s best for the client, who isn’t even likely to be _my_ client, solely because she has personal meaning for _you_ \--”

“You’re not doing what’s best for anyone!”

“I am!” Allison shouts, her voice reverberating through the lobby and shocking Kaidan into silence. “I’m giving you a shot to get in there before this case is handed over to the higher-ups and you won’t be allowed within a five hundred foot radius of wherever Shepard is stationed. This is going to be your one and only chance to talk to her -- to get the answers _you want_ on _your terms_ \-- before the formal trial process begins.”

They huff at each other with a foot between them, both with their arms crossed, ignoring the stares from passerby in the corridor.

“This is a violation of Alliance protocol regarding conflicts of interest,” Kaidan mutters eventually, eyes cast to the floor.

“Oh my god,” Allison bites. “ _Now_ you care about that?”

“I don’t want to talk to her, Lieutenant.”

“Since when do you give a--” Allison registers his words too late and snaps her gaze suddenly to his face. “What? You don’t want to?”

“I can’t.”

“Bullshit,” she spits, then adds in response to Kaidan’s cocked eyebrow: “Commander.”

“I don’t think you get--”

“Oh good, it’s my favourite speech. ‘I don’t think you get it, Allison,’” she mocks, lowering her tone in a poor imitation of his own. “‘This is _Shepard_ we’re talking about.’”

“Very drôle.”

“You want answers? There she is. She can’t walk away from you this time.”

“She didn’t walk away last time,” he sighs, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “I did.”

Allison stares him down, the significance of this statement settling in. “Are you actually telling me that you can _physically_ walk away from her, but somehow not do it figuratively?”

“She had a chance to answer my questions, and she opted not to.”

“Because you lost control! Because a colony had just been snatched out from under your nose!”

“Maybe. But maybe she just doesn’t want to tell me the truth.”

“I--” Allison’s sentence dies in her throat, and her mouth shutters closed before opening again. “I still think you should try.”

“I did try.” He shrugs, trying to shirk the defeat from where it’s settled on his shoulders. “It’s done.”

“Your self-sabotaging brain doesn’t think it’s done. Look, this is a different situation -- now we need to know about the relay, and she’s way more likely to talk to you than to some lawyer she’s never met before. If not for yourself, do it for the Alliance. She trusts you, you might--”

“She _trusted_ me, maybe, once upon a time,” Kaidan counters fiercely. “She didn’t trust me enough to tell me she was alive all this time. She didn’t trust me enough to even -- even break up with me properly in case she accidentally tripped over something and said something _honest_ , for once. She preferred to allow me to believe she was dead than to tell me she’d turned her back on the Alliance -- on the Normandy, on the crew -- on us -- to join a _terrorist organization._ ”

His chest is heaving; he’s not sure when emotion caught up with him. He shuts his eyes and tries to get a grip. “For all I know, she’s the one who ordered the Normandy’s destruction," he continues, voice steadying. "For all I know, she’s the reason 22 good men and women died outside of Alchera two years ago. You want me to interrogate her? Tell me, Allison, what questions would you have me ask? Which betrayal should I get to the bottom of first? The one she committed against the Alliance? Against the crew of the Normandy? Or against me?”

Allison sets her jaw against the compassion and exasperation jointly flooding her features. “You don’t really believe she’s responsible. You know her better than that.”

“Not anymore.”

“You know her better than anyone else who’s going to interrogate her. You might wind up giving her some much-needed benefit of the doubt.”

“That’s exactly the problem!” Kaidan argues, pointing at the door. “If her story can’t stand up to Alliance interrogation, then she doesn’t deserve--”

Kaidan’s sentence dies in his throat as his gaze follows the line of his arm through the open door of the detention centre. On the other side of the corridor, behind a pane of unbreakable glass, Shepard stands with her arms aloft, looking tired as a handful of Alliance officers pat her down with an unusual level of thoroughness.

It’s a fleeting instant, but it’s all it takes; her eyes snap to the open door for want of something new to look at, and she catches his eye.

Time stops.

Something rushes in his ears, and Kaidan inhales sharply, his instincts telling him at once to retreat and to reach for his sidearm. Yet it’s Shepard who manages to tear her gaze away first, snapping her eyes to a spot on the floor, her expression wearing unmistakeable shame as her shoulders tense further into her neck, the way they always do when she’s on guard; and Kaidan wonders if she, too, is fighting the instinct to reach for her weapon.

Then, just as suddenly, time starts back up again.

Noise floods back into his ears at normal levels, the buzz of conversation and of footsteps in the corridor suddenly vivid; and something breaks in his throat as he wrenches his head in the opposite direction. “No,” he says, tone hollow, his hands settling on his hips to give them something to hold onto. “I can’t.”

Allison reaches out a hand to grab at his arm. “Kaidan--”

But he pulls easily away, not looking at her, opting instead to turn on his heel and march woodenly away. “Don’t bother me with this again,” he calls without turning.

“Aye aye,” he hears her parrot weakly back.

That evening, Allison calls five times; he rejects them all. He dodges her until he stops seeing Shepard’s crestfallen expression every time he passes the security floor in the weeks that follow. For some reason, having her witness this particular shame feels like too much.

When he finally calls her back, she doesn’t bring it up. She doesn’t update him on Shepard. She acts as though nothing has changed.

It’s for the best. After all this time, he finally realizes he can’t keep chasing after her.

Kaidan tries to forget.


	7. 2186 - Normandy || 2185 - Vancouver

  


  


**// N O R M A N D Y --** 2186 **//**

 

It goes surprisingly well, getting back aboard the Normandy; it’s _being_ there, for prolonged periods of time in the same tin can occupied by Shepard, that starts to cause him problems. 

Hadn’t he wanted this? Yes, this was exactly what he’d wanted; he hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted it until he was actually back aboard, unfamiliar though the ship felt to him. It feels right to hear Shepard’s booming voice in the halls, to listen to Tali and Garrus bullshitting about some tech upgrade or other, to be startled by Joker’s inappropriate ribbing called over the comm. It feels right when Shepard leans into the crew quarters or the observation bay and tells him to suit up; it feels right to follow her immediately, without further explanation as to where they’re going or what they’re doing, to do as he is asked.

That said, not everything is the same as it used to be.

It isn’t that Kaidan has been clueless that things in his head were deteriorating, even before a Cerberus robot had tried to brain him. Hell, he’d been aboard the Normandy -- the old one -- the first time when Chakwas told him his implant was starting to cause problems. It’s not that he’s been fooled for a second about what was causing the migraines; everyone knew the complications with L2 implants, and he accepted that fate a long time ago.

It’s more that other people, more than just Allison, are starting to notice that something’s off, and that doesn’t sit so well with him.

Kaidan has long since prided himself on his ability to keep his headaches under wraps. If he starts making comments that are widely interpreted as dopey when his humour filter is on the fritz for the effort he’s putting into subduing pain, that’s something he can deal with. High pain tolerance is something that’s worked in his favour as a member of the Alliance, anyway -- what’s a sprained shoulder and a bruised rib when something at your temple has been steadily trying to force your eyes to close against any light source for the last four hours?

He can bear it. He knows how to grit his teeth and get it done, no matter what’s hurting or how much. Following Shepard around now is no different than it was three years ago, in that respect.

It’s the _other_ symptoms that are the problem -- spatial awareness, for example.

Garrus is the first person to actually _laugh_ at him. “Did you just … trip, Alenko?”

“No.”

“Over a _stair_?”

“ _No._ ”

“So that combat roll was just practice, then.”

“Shepard does them all the time.”

“Yeah, but -- determinedly. You just looked afraid. Like a banshee was after you.”

Kaidan flinches. “Can we -- not talk about this?”

Garrus opens his mouth to reply anyway, but Shepard, either intentionally saving him or trying to do something unheard of like _focus on the mission_ , shushes them both, and the question is blessedly dropped.

Kaidan truly does think it’s the chip causing him problems -- until, suddenly, he’s not so sure. He runs into Vega a few nights later, his focus apparently elsewhere when he turns the corner out of the mess and toward crew quarters.

“Whoa,” Vega mutters, holding Kaidan’s shoulders at arm’s length once they connect. Kaidan’s never actually felt like a small man before this moment. “All right there, Major?”

Kaidan’s eyes flit over to Shepard on the other side of the mess, but she continues to talk to EDI as though nothing weird has happened. “I’m fine,” he says, trying to focus his eyes on Vega. “Sorry about that.”

James, too, looks over at Shepard, and then back to Kaidan with a raised eyebrow. “Hope you don’t mind me saying, Alenko, but it seems like an easy way to solve your problems is just to get laid already.”

Kaidan is shocked into blinking silence. “I’m sorry?”

“With someone else,” James clarifies, easily holding his gaze.

Kaidan stares.

Vega stares back. “Other than Shepard.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kaidan replies, too quickly.

“You don’t know what I mean?” James repeats, then chuckles under his breath. “I mean, start fucking someone who is not the Commander, because from what I can tell you seem to be having trouble standing upright when she’s in the same room as you. I dunno how _you_ feel, but I could use a break from watching you lose your shit. Make sense?”

“Oh, that’s -- I mean, my--” What, is he gonna admit to _Vega_ his health problems?

James seems to take his aborted sentence as an admission of guilt. “Look. Between this and how you keep ‘forgetting’ things … finding someone to get your rocks off with would do us all a favour. Make the mission flow a lot more smoothly, comprendes?”

Kaidan narrows his eyes, suddenly defensive.. “I outrank you, you know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“By a lot. Like -- a lot.”

Vega snorts and claps him on the shoulder. “Okay, compañero. You know you could have your pick of almost anyone else on the ship, right?”

Kaidan furrows his brow and crosses his arms, trying to look intimidating. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“For someone who outranks me ‘by, like, a lot,’ you sure have troubles with comprehension.”

“Are you propositioning me, Vega?”

James laughs easily. “Sir, no, sir,” he belts out. “Some of us have respect for chain of command around here.”

“What’s that supp--” Kaidan cuts his sentence short and shuts his eyes against the throbbing in his temples instead of repeating himself.

James nods. “You don’t know what I’m talking about. All right. I get it. You do you, Major -- whatever form that takes.” And Vega smacks him on the shoulder again and walks away without another word.

And when Shepard finally takes the opportunity to walk by several seconds later, as though to prove a point, Kaidan is left to fight furiously, involuntarily against the butterflies in his stomach when she gives him a little smile on her way into the lift.

He’s gotten through nearly _entire weeks_ maintaining an air of hard-earned complacency -- only for it all to fall out from under his feet in one conversation.

To his intense annoyance, his tripping rate only _increases_ after that.

  


  


**// V A N C O U V E R --** 2185 **//**

 

“What’s this?”

Allison slides the sealed envelope across the bar. “A summons.”

Kaidan blinks at it, then looks suddenly at Allison. “Not--”

“Not what you think,” she replies hurriedly. “At least, not quite. It’s a tribunal about the Reapers.”

He furrows his brow. “The Council is acknowledging the existence of Reapers?”

“Not per se,” Allison says grimly. “Shepard--”

Kaidan groans loudly and prolongedly to drown out the rest of her sentence, then thuds his head heavily against the bar. “I’m gonna need about three more of these,” he instructs the bartender hoarsely as she passes before turning back to Allison’s irritated frown. “Shepard’s trying to convince the Council that the Reaper threat is real,” he finishes for her.

“Shepard’s trying to convince the _Alliance_ that the Reaper threat is real, in the hopes that they’ll convince the Council, because the Council--”

“Isn’t paying the slightest bit of attention?”

“Pretty much.”

“Ha, ha. That’s a shocker.”

Allison squints at him. “Are you already drunk?”

“Not yet, but if there is a god I’ll be there soon.”

“Oh-kay. Well, maybe I’ll give this to you tomorrow.”

Kaidan snatches the envelope out of her hand, distantly impressed with himself and how the endless hours he has recently spent at the gym -- intended to physically exhaust the anguish out of his system since Shepard came back and he found himself unable, as it turned out, to move on with his life even in the slightest -- have at least improved his reflexes. “It’s fine,” he mutters, fumbling with the envelope’s seal. “When’s the tribunal?”

“Next week. I checked with Anderson to confirm your time off, since you’re still not talking to him.”

“He’s not my immediate superior, why would I talk to him?”

“You’re casually not talking to him, _and_ he’s spearheading this tribunal. Separate but related things.”

“Of course he is.” He holds the unfolded paper at arm’s length, squinting and muttering the words aloud to himself.

“Are you going blind, Alenko?”

“No, it’s just a bad day for ... it’s fine.”

Allison leans in, too closely, as though to annoy him into doing something about his health. “Is it your chip?”

“It’s fine, Allison.”

“You should get that looked at,” she says, for probably the hundredth time.

“It’s just today. I’ll sleep on it and it’ll go away. Doesn’t help that I’ve been drinking.”

“Well.”

“Don’t start. I didn’t think I’d have to read anything else today.”

Allison clears her throat and puts on a husky voice. “Come here often?”

Kaidan shoots her a sidelong glare. “I’m trying to move on, like you keep telling me to do.”

“With alcohol?”

“Well, I can’t work out any more without tearing something.”

“Have you tried seeing someone?”

“Like a shrink? No thanks.”

“Nooo,” she breathes, half-exasperated, half-affectionate. “Like on a date.”

“Ugh,” he spits, pretending to read the paper. “I’m not having this conversation again.”

“Daniel’s still single.”

“You date him, then.”

“Thanks; too much dick for me. Though if the rumours are true, probably the perfect amount for you..."

"Allison."

"Remember when we met? You were in the middle of a four-month streak of boys only. It was great. You talked a _lot_ less."

" _Allison_ ,” Kaidan mutters, utterly not in the mood.

Despite Allison’s insistence, it wasn’t that he’d only dated men since Shepard had died; he’d had several one-night stands with women, too. The tragic thing generally tended to be in his strategy: firstly, by the end of the dates, he was generally tipsy on wine, which tended to make him more emotional than usual; and secondly, he usually felt compelled to go down on his dates once he realized he wasn’t actually kissing the woman he most wanted to kiss. It was easier to forget whose eyes were staring down at him if he wasn’t looking at her face. 

On the plus side, his stubbornness in trying to forget Shepard while buried in someone else’s lap gave him remarkable stamina -- noticeable enough that women had commented on it and, if Allison’s horrified screams over the comm had had any truth to them, potentially spread the word to their friends about this titan of a Commander whose description bore strange resemblance to his own. On the flip side, literally zero of the women he’d met up with while Shepard was dead (or “dead”) had, in fact, been Shepard, despite that he tended to mutter her name at least once during these doomed experiments in self-flaggelation; and this meant that he generally felt awful afterward, and the whole process had been barely worth it.

So he left some dates without seeking release altogether and encouraged a quick and dirty handjob with others, which apparently contributed to his reputation among Allison’s friends. One woman he actually had managed to see more than once due to her extraordinary generosity of spirit in listening to him unload the whole Shepard story on the first date (the wine. the wine was always a mistake), but that had ended quickly when, after having actually been entirely and properly seduced by her, he’d burst into tears. 

She’d been good about it. They were still friends. 

Kaidan had returned to men for a long time after that.

It was true that he talked about Shepard a lot less when he was seeing men. He tended to stay with them for longer than one date, and he was generally less morose when he was having sex on the regular with someone who in absolutely no respect reminded him of anything about Shepard (or so he told himself). It was possible Allison had a point; it might do him good to seek out men again.

"Remember Hot Brandon?” Allison continues whimsically, undeterred. “Daniel's like Hot Brandon."

Kaidan smirks; he _does_ remember Hot Brandon. “I appreciate what you’re trying to say, Ally, I do. But as it turns out, I have to remember details about Shepard _on purpose_ this week. It’s just not a good idea.” He gestures vaguely. “I mean, wine…”

“Wine makes you weepy,” she repeats to herself. “So drink beer.”

“Beer makes me burpy,” he says.

“And whiskey?”

“Makes me wilty.” He gestures at his pants helplessly. 

Allison makes a face. Kaidan smiles at her. “You should have seen that one coming,” he says fondly.

“I hate you.” 

“I know,” he says, switching out his old drink for a new one.

Allison watches him for a moment, then slides one of his three incoming drinks across the bar toward herself. “I’m not trying to start a fight, Kaidan, but we’re pushing two and a half years since she died.”

“We sure are," he says sardonically, “and yet she keeps coming back.” He folds the summons and throws it down on the bar in front of him. “Someday, I’ll get closure. Someday I’ll stop dreaming about her, stop remembering stupid looks across unforgiving distances at impossible times..."

"Poetic," she snorts sarcastically.

"But today is not that day. And neither is tomorrow.” He picks up one of the glasses and turns it around in his hand. “But hey, look on the bright side: Maybe the Reapers will kill us all and I’ll never have to deal with it again.”

“Here’s hoping,” she says, in morose mockery of his cynicism.

Kaidan sips at his drink, then holds the glass in his palm and watches the liquid roll around with intensity. “How’s Shepard doing, anyway?” he says eventually, intensely hating himself.

“She’s fine,” Allison replies noncommittally. It’s the first time he’s asked her about Shepard in the weeks since she’s been back, and he’s grateful that Allison’s not making a fuss. “Still keeping a lot of details to herself, but I understand why. She seems really ... tired. Sitting by herself in the quiet might be everything she could want right now.”

Kaidan nods slowly, imagining Shepard the way she was after the Battle of the Citadel: stretched out across the bed, cradling a book, but still sitting stiffly, still in her uniform, as though ready to drop it all at the barest indication of trouble. “Could be,” he mutters against the rim of his glass.

Allison gives him a few moments of contemplative silence before nudging his ankle with her toe. “I need to coach you,” she says gently. “On not wearing your heart on your sleeve in front of the tribunal.”

“Does it involve handing them their summons back?”

Allison smiles. “No,” she says. “You’re gonna need to answer questions in a way that doesn’t imply you’re backing Shepard up just because she’s Shepard.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

She gives him a dubious expression, and he rolls his eyes with annoyance. “When you were stuck in stasis on Horizon, what was Shepard doing?” Allison continues.

“Fighting Collectors,” he replies robotically.

“Did you see the fight?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know they were Collectors?”

Kaidan frowns his annoyance at Allison. “There were Collectors on the planet," he replies with precision, returning to face forward, pressing the rim of his glass against his lips. "I watched Collectors drag colonists away right in front of me. After Shepard stopped fighting, I could move again and the Collectors had retreated. I can only assume they were Collectors she was fighting.”

“Why were you deployed to Horizon?”

“To defend Horizon against the coming invasion--”

“No,” Allison interrupts, pointing at him accusingly, glass still in hand. “From whom did you think you were protecting Horizon when you were deployed in the first place? Cerberus, right?”

Kaidan looks up suddenly, then over at Allison, saying nothing for a pregnant moment. “How do you know about that?” he says eventually.

“You’re not talking to Anderson, so Anderson’s talking to me.”

“That--”

“How do you know Shepard wasn’t _fighting_ Cerberus?” Allison shouts over him.

Kaidan clenches his jaw and stares into the amber of his drink. “She _is_ Cerberus,” he replies, voice low in his throat.

“You knew that when you were deployed?”

“I--”

“Is that _why_ you were deployed to Horizon -- to confront Shepard?”

“No.”

"Were you there to rescue Shepard from Cerberus?"

"No!"

“A reminder, Commander Alenko, that lying under oath is an indictable offense with penalties including--”

“Okay!” Kaidan shouts, waving an angry hand; Allison turns away to quietly sip her drink for a few minutes until Kaidan’s breathing steadies.

“Here are some mistakes you made,” she begins gently.

“Oh, my god, are we really going to do this now?”

“You’ll dodge me all weekend if we don’t.”

“Well, that’s true,” he mutters.

“First, you identified a specific you didn’t witness. Yes, Collectors were on the planet, and yes, it’s likely that she fought them, but is there any outside possibility it could’ve been anything else?”

Kaidan thinks back, struggling to ignore the knot pulling together in his gut at the memory of his various failures. “There was definitely something else there, but I heard the Collectors,” he admits with resignation. “They make this clicking sound.”

“Okay. So you can testify with certainty about the clicking you heard that you affiliate with Collectors. You can’t say she was definitely fighting Collectors unless you saw the fight, or you’ll open yourself up to further questioning like that. Just say you didn’t witness it, and then reiterate what you did witness. It shuts down that extra BS.”

Kaidan nods thoughtfully, staying submerged in his memory.

“A summons is legally binding or I wouldn’t put you through this,” Allison tells him.

“I know.”

“What was the subject of your conversation with Shepard on Horizon?”

“It had been two years since we’d seen each other, or spoken. I thought she was dead. For the most part, we discussed how she wasn’t.”

“Did she identify her involvement in the attack on Horizon?”

“She identified she had allied herself with Cerberus and claimed--”

“No,” Allison cut in.

“Ugh.”

“Do you want her to go to prison?”

“She _did_ claim she was there to help save the colony.”

“And you don’t believe her.”

Kaidan spins the liquid around in the bottom of his glass. “The whole thing is just really convenient.”

“That’s what the prosecutors think, too. I need to know now, Kaidan, so please tell me: are you gonna be a hostile witness?”

He takes a long moment, staring into the bar. “In our conversation on Horizon, Shepard _said_ she was there to protect the colony.”

“Thank you,” she mutters. “And did you believe her?”

“I believed that’s what Shepard, the one I knew two years earlier, would have wanted. I did not believe that’s what Cerberus wanted. The woman in front of me looked like Shepard, but she was also a member of Cerberus. In hindsight I don’t know what to think.” Kaidan looks at Allison. “That’s the truth, Ally. If that’s too hostile, then I guess that’s what you’re gonna get.”

Allison looks at him grimly and raises her arm to order another drink. “Then I guess we’ll just hope that question never comes up,” she mutters; and as Kaidan watches the bartender pour her a drink, he fleetingly wonders if Allison at some point stopped talking about the tribunal.


	8. 2186 - Normandy || 2185 - Vancouver (Trial, Part I)

  


  


**// N O R M A N D Y --** 2186 **//**

 

On the plus side -- maybe Kaidan’s not the only one having trouble in issues of sudden proximity.

It had begun innocently enough: Kaidan had stumbled out of bed shortly after shouting himself (and most of the crew) awake when his industrial-strength alarm sounded, then shuffled himself off to take a shower -- forgetting, in the process, to bring clean clothes with him.

This was not in itself unusual -- it had become a standard morning problem, particularly since he got back into space and his internal clock got thrown off. He’s not a morning person -- not anymore. It takes at minimum one very hot, very bracing shower and one very hot, very strong cup of coffee before he can think straight before 7am, and he doesn’t generally like to be a slobbering ruin of a human being when Shepard decides, reliably at some ungodly hour, to take a team down to fetch whatever pivotal new intel she's managed to track down. 

So he’s created a system. No big deal. The problem is that he has not yet incorporated ‘bring uniform to shower’ into his system.

He has, however, made progress: now he sets out his attire the day before. That way, his humiliation blankets him for a minimal amount of time when he stumbles back into crew’s quarters, reliably with a towel around his waist and an expression on his face that clearly suggests he’d rather be dead than awake, to dress with as little shame as is possible under the circumstances.

(His ‘morning problems’ are only getting worse over time -- one of those ‘definitely the chip or at least probably not Shepard’ issues -- and at this point he’s stopped expecting miracles of himself. Chakwas seems to think the chip is now actively causing damage itself, creating this blinding, excruciating pain that makes it difficult to think straight before he adjusts to being conscious; but he prefers to blatantly disregard such things in favour of worrying about the far more prominent apocalypse, to her mounting chagrin.)

And so, upon realizing his clothes are not in the bathroom and remain neatly folded next door, Kaidan follows procedure: he wraps his towel around his waist and leaves the men’s room to trudge, zombie-like, back to the crew’s quarters, sleepwear balled loosely in one fist by his side while the other stifles a dramatic yawn.

What’s not standard is that the first thing he sees when the door opens is Shepard.

Shepard, force of nature, is somehow already dressed, coiffed, and fully functional at 6:17am, speeding toward him with the momentum of a hurricane and calling something to Cortez over her shoulder.

Kaidan, meanwhile, stands, half-undead, uncaffeinated, and sopping wet, wearing nothing but a towel while literally holding dirty underwear -- confused.

The confusion, like most other things about this morning, is standard; it’s too early to panic. He does think fleetingly about jumping back into the men’s room and waiting until she disappears again, but he realizes even in the second it takes her to stop shouting at Cortez over her shoulder that he would look even more ridiculous than he already does if he was leaping backward through the air on top of it all. A brief mental visualization suggests he may also lose the towel in the process, which he feels would not improve the situation.

So he makes the kind of snap decision that tells him his appointment to Spectre status was well-earned: he opts to straighten up, project as much confidence as he’s able in this state of reduced morning functionality, and stride self-assuredly toward crew quarters, all the while praying that she completely fails to register anything unusual whatsoever about the situation.

Unfortunately, as Kaidan often suspects at this hour of the day, it would appear there is no god.

Whether it’s his awful morning brain or merely serendipity, the moment seems to slow down of its own accord. Shepard’s eyes snag on Kaidan’s torso. Her pace never breaks, yet in the time it takes her to brush past him, her eyebrow raises, her lips part, and her eyes make a slow climb along the stretch of his flank, over the sculpt of his peck, before lingering on the line of his shoulders.

Kaidan realizes suddenly that Shepard just totally checked him out.

He feels his eyebrows shoot up as he turns slowly on his heel, blinking dumbly after her as she passes.

The same realization seems to take Shepard equally by surprise; her eyes widen when she realizes who it is she’s looking at. Her expression wastes no time in closing off as she turns her face away. One hand pounds open the door to the Port Observation Bay while the other flies up to rub at the back of her neck, her form stiff as she stares steadily at the alloy doors.

Cortez stops dead behind Kaidan, looking first at Shepard and then back at Alenko with a growing grin. 

"Am I interrupting?" says Cortez, local comedian.

“God, it’s early,” Shepard mutters almost inaudibly as she stands suddenly taller; and she walks, stalk-straight and without a glance behind her, into the room.

“Those muscles get the best of us all the time, Commander,” Cortez calls after her, waggling his eyebrows at Kaidan as he passes.

“Not another word, Cortez,” she grits out, moving her hand to her forehead and rubbing at it aggressively as though scrubbing it of whatever image of Kaidan had imprinted itself in her mind.

A wary glance manages to reach Kaidan over Steve’s shoulder before the door hisses closed; and in the renewed still of the morning, Kaidan’s eyes instantly close. His heart feels angry, he thinks thickly, pressing his free hand over it as though to subdue its efforts in pounding its way out of his chest; and when finally he turns slowly on the spot, it's only to set his forehead slowly against the cool steel of the ship in the hopes it will help him process the last minute of his life more effectively.

“All right, Kaidan?” Traynor asks after some indeterminate amount of time passes. He cracks an eye open in her direction and grunts with annoyance at the smirk pulling at her lips as she evaluates his upright foray into near-unconsciousness.

“Fuck mornings,” he gravels back, voice still harsh from disuse.

Traynor cocks her head sympathetically and hands him her cup of coffee. “I’ll get the next one,” she soothes, patting him on the arm. He gives himself a second to pound his head against the side of the ship in an endeavor to uproot any memory of Shepard’s bedroom eyes from his mind, then reaches an arm out beside him.

“Thank you,” he manages to mutter as he takes the coffee from her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she croons, clearly too mired in schadenfreude to quite manage to sound sympathetic.

Kaidan shakes his head, forehead still set against the wall, as he tries inexpertly to sip the coffee without moving. Then he says anyway, “I think she liked what she saw, but then she saw my face.”

“Who?”

“Shepard.” He gestures uselessly toward the observation bay.

“Oh.” Then she grins. “Oooh. That’s tough.”

“Who did she think I was? I’m _obviously_ not Garrus...”

“Oh, that broke off ages ago.”

That, at last, brings Kaidan to stand upright again. Coffee splashes onto his feet, but in this moment he can’t find it in him to care. “It did?”

“Sure.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked.”

“Shepard told you?”

“Something about deep respect, the last few years have been too hard on her, feels closed off, can’t do it justice, blah blah, best for everyone if she’s by herself…”

Something very difficult to identify is going on in Kaidan’s head. “Uh-huh… ”

“But maybe she’s re-opened her mind. Or _maybe_ she’s looking for something a little more--”

“No. Stop.” Kaidan splays a hand out in front of him. “Don’t say it.”

“Too early?”

“Too -- vulgar. I’m not interested in anything _shallow_ with Shepard.”

“Even if she was interested in that with you?”

Kaidan blinks blearily at a spot somewhere over Traynor’s shoulder. “I…??” He shakes his head vigorously. “Look. She knows how I feel, and she’s never approached me. I think it’s fairly obvious that I can’t provide her with what she … wants … or…” he trails off, his mind going in a direction he’d prefer for it not to go. “Okay, I -- have to stop -- trying to think now.”

“I’m just saying that if the savior of the galaxy--”

“No.”

“--is eyeballing you in the corridor--”

“Didn’t I just say I’m not thinking about this?”

“--maybe you might want to consider your _position_ \--”

“Jesus Christ.” He moves to brush past her. “I’m leaving, before she hears this -- insanity--”

“Hears what??” Traynor says, raising her voice to an unreasonable decibel. “Whether you’d sleep with the Commander if she asked??”

Kaidan stops and turns to look at her with an expression of profound exasperation. “I hate you,” he husks, sheer venom dripping from every syllable.

Traynor grins wickedly. “I brought you _coffee_.”

“Evil coffee. Coffee under false pretenses.” He hands the mug back to her. “Take it back.”

“Can’t deny you’re awake now,” she points out, holding the mug from the bottom and allowing him to turn away in peace at last.

“At what cost?” he mutters, ducking miserably into crew quarters.

His painstakingly arranged uniform, having abandoned him in his time of need, now lies where he left it, folded, in the corner of his bunk.

Kaidan makes a fucking note to consider pinning it to his alarm clock tomorrow morning to ensure this never happens again.

  


  


**// V A N C O U V E R --** 2185 **//**

 

“State your name and rank for the record.”

It has become abundantly apparent that Kaidan has not had enough coffee for this.

“Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko, Systems Alliance, Biotics Division.”

“Do you swear to tell the whole truth under penalties -- up to and including dismissal, discharge, and imprisonment -- from this moment forward for the duration of this inquest?”

“I do.”

“Be seated.”

Kaidan sits at attention and does not look at Shepard, opting to scan the panel of Admirals before him instead. Anderson flanks the far left, next to a woman he doesn't recognize, while at the centre sits Admiral Weiss, whose reputation precedes him as a complete bastard and uncompromising hardass. Admiral Hackett is seated at Weiss' other side, while Admiral Pham, with whom he organized the administrative portion of a considerable component of his spec ops team, occupies the far right.

All in all, he remarks with surprise, not a bad panel. He wonders whose arms got twisted to generate such a sympathetic board, and then wonders again if, fans (or enemies) of Shepard, many of them might have volunteered.

“Commander Alenko," Weiss begins with an air of great pompousness, "you have been summoned here today to testify for the tribunal about your experiences working under Commander Shepard--”

“No, sir,” Kaidan says brusquely.

Admiral Weiss leans over the lectern and leers down at Kaidan. Up behind the panel, Hackett purses his lips, while Anderson shuts his eyes in apparent mortification on Kaidan’s behalf. “What’s that, Commander?” asks Weiss.

“I was summoned here today to testify for the tribunal about my experiences fighting the Reaper Sovereign and its affiliated forces." He says it as calmly as he is able, taking the cues of his superiors as an indication that he should keep his cool. "I was not summoned to testify about Commander Shepard.”

A murmur breaks out as the tribunal members process Kaidan’s statement. “Granted,” continues Weiss eventually, “but as you worked under Commander Shepard to defeat the Reaper threat--”

“I worked _alongside_ Commander Shepard to defeat Sovereign,” Kaidan corrects. “I didn’t work … under her.”

He blinks heavily. In the corner of his eye, he can see Shepard’s figure bowing her head behind a hand set against her brow. “What I mean to say,” he continues, faculties now clearly slipping out of his control, “is that Commander Shepard ran her ship as a … collective. Well, sort of. We were a team, is what I’m saying. She didn’t order any one action that we weren’t all behind.”

The tribunal is staring at him as though he has spontaneously grown an extra head.

“I’m not here to testify about Shepard,” he reminds the room and, evidently, himself.

“ _Commander_ Shepard,” Weiss corrects.

“What Commander Alenko is trying to say,” Anderson begins from the far end of the panel, “is that any testimony he may offer about the Commander could potentially violate Alliance conflict of interest clauses 94 point A through D, as well as--”

"The Commanders were romantically involved?" Weiss interrupts with malignant interest.

“They were romantically involved,” Allison says, standing suddenly from her seat beside Shepard. “However we feel that this detail is not relevant to an inquiry ostensibly called to prove or disprove Commander Shepard’s claims about incoming Reaper forces.”

“Actually,” Kaidan begins slowly, wishing lightning would strike him down where he sits for having the fucking gall to open his mouth again, “unless Commander Shepard is on trial, why is she sitting in this room at all?”

“Watch yourself, Commander,” says Weiss.

“I think I have a right to know why my confidential testimony is being observed by someone else testifying for the tribunal when I have not received any invitations to observe other testimonies myself.”

“Commander Alenko,” Hackett interjects warningly.

“Is Commander Shepard in fact on trial?” Kaidan continues, all self-preservation apparently truant. “Have I been summoned here under false pretenses, or am I missing something?”

“Thin ice, Commander,” Weiss wheezes.

“Were my invitations lost in the mail? Just wondering.”

“INSUBORDINATION!”

“Recess!” Anderson shouts over him, leaping to his feet.

Kaidan rises stiffly and walks immediately out of the room, steering himself to the nearest coffee cart on autopilot. He does his best to ignore Allison when she catches up to him and begins breathing in his ear, but then she stands in front of him and refuses to let him by, much as he'd expect a lawyer to do.

“Are you _trying to get arrested?_ ” she hisses at him.

“Why is Shepard here,” he returns in monotone, stopping at last when her fingers steeple against his chest.

“Because she basically _called the tribunal,_ you jackass. Her testimony started all this, and they want to be able to corroborate your story with Shepard’s. She’s attending everyone’s testimonies. She’s not on trial.”

“She is on trial. Her whole account is, obviously, on trial. Weiss clearly thinks she’s on trial--”

“Weiss is a renowned bastard, you know that. He’s been acting like a jackass the whole inquest. He hates Shepard; that’s not a secret. But that doesn't give him more power than any of the other Admirals in that room. It does mean, though, that he has the power to throw you into the detention centre the next time you even consider uttering an insubordinate syllable. You can’t bait him, and you can’t let him bait you.”

“This clearly isn’t about the Reaper threat." Anger fills him. "It’s all about Shepard. They lied.”

“They didn’t lie. But it’s Shepard’s word about the Reaper threat versus the world. They’re inextricable. You have to tolerate Shepard’s presence, both physically and in name, in this process."

“Alenko,” Anderson hisses suddenly behind him, pulling Kaidan’s arm and spinning him around. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing in there?”

“Shepard’s on trial,” Kaidan repeats. “That’s no tribunal. I don’t want any part of it.”

“Shepard’s not on trial, and you’re within your rights to decline to answer any question that isn’t related to the Reapers -- but _end it there_. You’re right that it may seem like it’s about Shepard at times, but you know what happens if you don’t testify, and you know what happens if you carry on the way you just did again.”

“More secrets,” Kaidan hisses, fury pounding in his veins. “From both of you. Springing this on me.”

“You couldn’t have guessed?” Allison counters, stepping around to involve herself in their conversation. “It’s about the Reapers, Kaidan, but the Reapers are about Shepard. You have a chance to make a difference in terms of how the Alliance responds if there’s ever another encounter with another Reaper.”

“There will be,” he growls.

“Then _tell them that!_ ” she replies.

“You have to get this over with,” Anderson interjects, “and you have to behave yourself. Now, I made Weiss promise that if you apologized, you wouldn’t face court martial.”

“Ha! Hell with that,” Kaidan says loudly, turning away.

Anderson pulls him back again by the shoulder. “In exchange, I’ll support you in any objection to any question you have asked of you about Shepard,” he hisses, as though Kaidan has never interrupted. “Now, I'm not the only one in there who's on your side. But you’ve got to keep it together.”

“Kaidan, if Shepard can’t get _you_ of all people to back up her story, her song and dance about the Reapers will never be believed,” reasons Allison. “She’ll be discharged and thrown in jail for defecting.”

“And we won’t be prepared for the next time the Reapers pay us a visit,” adds Anderson.

Kaidan bristles, his headache pounding, ever-constant, under the surface. “Fine,” he concedes at last. “But I need caffeine before I go back in.”

Anderson nods and releases Kaidan’s arm. “Apologize to the Admiral,” he reminds him sternly, pointing a finger at him as he makes his way back toward the courtroom.

“How the hell did Anderson get on the tribunal with a bias like that?” Allison muses aloud, striding alongside Kaidan as he turns back toward the coffee cart.

“He’s been a diplomat. He knows how to play the system.” He gives Allison side-eye. “You don’t have to babysit me.”

“I’m not. I’m buying you a coffee.”

“You don’t have to do that either.”

“Oh my god, I don’t? Okay. Bye!”

“We’re in uniform. I outrank you. You know how this is gonna look?”

“Yeah, I can tell you care about appearances today.”

“Ugh.” Kaidan buries his face resignedly in his hands as they stand in the queue. “It wasn’t supposed to go like that.”

“No kidding,” she placates, then gives him a sidelong look. “You can look at her, you know.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Well, she’s looking at you.”

“Don’t tell me that.”

Allison seems pleased to take advantage of the fact that he faces jail if he tries to escape this conversation. “She was asking about you, by the way. Leading up to today.”

“I don’t want to hear it!”

“Kind of like the way you were asking about her last week?”

“Oh my god.”

“I told her that you were doing good. Getting all kinds of positive attention, both at work and in love…”

“I actively dislike you.”

“I didn’t tell her about your spec ops assignment, though. I thought it was nice the way you slipped the thing about Biotics Division in there. There wasn’t really one of those in '83. I’ll bet she’s all aflutter with excitement."

Allison pauses to order coffee, and Kaidan takes the opportunity to bury his face in his hands in frustration and embarrassment. In Shepard’s head, he’s probably still a Lieutenant under her command, and now, if marginally, he outranks her. There’s nothing about this situation that doesn't feel wrong somehow.

“My favourite part of that whole thing,” Allison continues a few unbearably short seconds later, “was when you casually dismissed the assumption that she was generally on top when you were together. ‘I didn’t work under her.’ Inspired.”

Kaidan snorts into the palms of his hands and re-emerges, tingeing faintly pink, to take the coffee she’s offering. “Is this real life?” he mutters.

“I’m not sure there has ever been anything realer.” Allison grins broadly. “Were you really on top?”

“Not generally.”

“I figured.”

He looks at her sidelong and tries not to catch her grin. “You’re getting me drunk tonight for not telling me she’d be there.”

“Deal.”

He takes a long slug of his coffee and stretches his head back in an attempt to burn the emotion out of his throat. “I hate today," he says eventually.

“I know.” She pulls him behind her in reminder that they need to enter separately and jabs him in the side as she passes. “Don’t forget to apologize, though, seriously. You don’t want to be stuck in jail with her. I hear there's a cell shortage. You might have to share her quarters."

“Ugh,” he says only, hanging back and trying not to picture anything about what Allison just told him. Pausing to wince through another burst of pain in his temple, Kaidan resorts to chugging as much coffee as he can manage in ten seconds and takes another second to stare at the ceiling. It scalds his throat on its way down, and he reminds himself a half-dozen times that he _doesn’t_ want to be stuck in jail with her, actually; that nothing he could possibly imagine about that situation would happen the way he wants it to. 

He won’t get the answers he wants, and he can't turn back the clock. All there is left to do is go forward.

With a breath, he beats down the minute part of him that wishes this _was_ a trial for Shepard -- something he could watch, contribute to, so he can understand what happened to her, to him, to _them_ \-- and walks back inside.


	9. 2186 - Normandy | 2185 - Vancouver (The Trial II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **cw: emetophobia** at the end of this chapter. Among the ways I've portrayed Kaidan is as someone with the symptoms of an anxiety disorder, including an uneasy stomach.

  


  


**// N O R M A N D Y --** 2186 **//**

 

Kaidan briefly has a hope that he won’t remember the check-out incident for very long -- that it’s muffled in the chip misfires of his morning stupor, and will soon shuffle away out of his memory forever, like so many other small details.

But he’s wrong, as usual; he remembers the curve in Shepard’s lips when she’d looked at him every time he sees her for the rest of the day.

Part of him suddenly wishes his implant was killing him faster. It was bad enough when this shit was one-sided, just him pining quietly and pretending as though it was all neatly concealed in compartments within himself. But now he has The Look, recorded in his mind in perfect, slow-motion detail, to at once try to figure out and emphatically not try to figure out what it meant, because every option he can come up with seems like a bad idea.

It _is_ a bad idea ... right?

Death would definitely be preferable.

She takes a salvage team down without asking him to accompany, and that suits him fine; this way, he’s able to avoid her for the rest of the day while he bothers Chakwas for a series of scans to get some indication of why his goddamn memory is so selective. At some point between the third and fourth times Chakwas tells him there’s nothing wrong except the degradation of his implant’s safeguards, he manages to find it very deep within himself to turn this world-is-ending feeling into something resembling a sense of humour.

Which evidently manifests itself into making fun of Shepard to her face.

It's much later that night when they pass each other, completely by accident, in the mess. Kaidan fights the urge to combat-roll out of the way and try to blend in with the walls when he sees her; and for his trouble, he gets a hesitant nod of acknowledgment from Shepard as they approach one another. 

Their seriousness suddenly strikes him as both hilarious and moronic, and his instincts lead him, by some apparent insanity, to cross his arms over his chest and feign very obvious self-consciousness under the light weight of Shepard’s gaze. He also places himself more directly in her line of vision, so as to make his imagined embarrassment as obvious as possible, as though possessed by some alien spirit determined to kill him with mortification alone.

It’s like this, standing in front of Shepard with his arms faux-crossed over his chest, that he is forced to finish his theatrics by shutting his eyes tight in mortification at his ‘instinctive’ idiocy.

But, by some miracle, Shepard sighs out a laugh and stops in front of him, mid-stride, with an air of exasperation. “Very funny,” she says quietly, looking around to confirm no one else is around before setting upon him with a challenging expression.

“I thought it was,” he lies easily, then considers briefly that floating through the floor and directly into open space might be funnier than this moment. “Actually, I didn’t,” he admits. “Apparently I’m just a natural jackass.”

"You're framing this as a new discovery?"

"No," he agrees. "I’ve always been a jackass. Just being more open about it lately."

Shepard smiles, a lop-sided thing, and he relaxes his arms over his chest to match her posture as he smiles at her in turn. It’s more relaxed than he’s been around Shepard for a while -- maybe years. Maybe his dumbassery was good for something.

If she notices, it’s lost in a searching expression. “We’re dropping on Rannoch again tomorrow. Geth comm hub. Not really sure … what to expect with it, to be honest. Could use your abilities.” It’s a question, not a command, and he beats back the instinct to be overly sincere in his reply.

“I’m free,” he agrees, and instantly feels an intense need to divert away from seriousness lest he say or do something he regrets, “but I’m not sure I should come.” He gives her a doleful look. “What if you get distracted by my rippling biceps?”

Shepard gives a menacing exhale as she realizes he’s joking, and then abruptly punches him in the arm.

“Ow!” He rubs at his shoulder aggressively. “I forgot about how much that hurt.”

“Please.” She smirks and cracks her knuckles against the palm of her other hand. “I’ve never punched you before.”

“You forget about that time you were aiming for a husk and hit me in the face instead.”

She brightens with the memory; he frowns. “That was your fault,” she says, again crossing her arms anew. “You entered my trajectory.”

“I was pulling it off you! To prevent you from being cannibalized!”

“Excuse me for presuming to take care of mys--”

“Then there was the other time,” Kaidan interrupts, “when we were sparring in the mess in the middle of the night--”

Shepard gapes at him with mocking surprise. “You’re gonna drag up that much history? You can’t blame me for that, your hungry fury was disrupting the entire ship.”

“Don’t relegate the blame to me. Let’s not lose sight of the big picture: you responded to my being jacked up after a mission by attacking me.”

“Actually, if I recall, I responded by inviting you upstairs to be _ravaged_. _You_ responded by raiding the cupboards even more aggressively than when I came in. You might’ve eaten our whole stock of food if I hadn’t stepped in.”

“Stepped in? You shoved me!”

Shepard shrugs, arms still crossed and defensive. “I saved you from yourself.”

“And then you shoved me again.”

“You had to be stopped.”

“And then you wrestled me to the ground until I had no choice but to defend myself--”

“Feebly, I might add.”

“And two minutes later you kneed me in the junk.”

Shepard gasps in mock scandalousness. “Accidentally!”

“Then, in your haste to, quote-unquote, ‘apologize’, gave me an uppercut to the jaw when I doubled over--”

“Also an accident!”

He grins broadly. “Sounds like a well thought-out tactical assault if you ask me, Commander.”

She has no reply to that, and looks at him with a half-smile he can’t read. They stand in silence for some time, looking at one another.

“I’m glad you decided to come back aboard, Kaidan,” she says, eventually.

He nods gratefully, expression forcing itself back to neutral as his heart rate gets suddenly away from him. He clears his throat. “It’s because I’m really fit, right?”

Shepard rolls his eyes and flexes her fist again, and he leaps quickly backward, holding his hands defensively in front of him, unable to prevent the spread of the grin back across his face.

“You coming with me tomorrow or not?” she says only, trying to beat back a grin of her own as she drops her hands into her pockets and slouches, walking backward, toward the lift.

Kaidan’s mouth quirks, and he nods. “I’ll be there.”

“Good,” she replies, then spins around and gives a small wave behind her. “You might want to get Dr. Chakwas to look at that arm.”

“You could look at it, if you wanted. I could flex.”

She groans. “Try not to eat the whole kitchen,” floats her reply from around the corner.

And if he hangs back in the mess and takes longer than usual to polish off his usual half-box of Alliance-grade nutrition flakes just in case she decides to come back and assault him again, no one needs to know.

The lift is horrifically silent.

Kaidan opts to forego sleep for the sake of a late-night shower.

  


  


**// V A N C O U V E R --** 2185 **//**

 

“You continued to work under Commander Shepard for several months following the defeat of Sovereign?”

Kaidan continues to sit stalk-straight. “Yes.”

Admiral Chen returns to her PDA. “Until the destruction of the SSV Normandy by an unknown assailant forced you to evacuate the ship, is that correct?”

“Is this relevant to the Reaper threat?” he asks, after a pause.

“Did Reapers attack the SSV Normandy?” Chen rephrases.

“I wouldn’t know,” he replies. “I wasn’t on the Bridge at the time of the attack. I didn’t get a visual of the assailing vessel.”

“And after the fact, what information did you glean about the attack on the SSV Normandy?”

“Objection -- hearsay,” says Allison from Shepard’s side.

Chen frowns, as though unsure whether this should be treated like a trial, but turns again to face Kaidan. “What _can_ you tell us about the attack?” she asks instead.

“Little specific. A weapon of considerable strength perforated the Normandy’s hull within seconds of first strike, tearing massive holes and starting fires. Any shielding we had put up was quickly proven redundant. Our pilot attempted evasive maneuvers to no avail.”

“Your pilot -- that’s Jeff Moreau.”

Kaidan’s eyelids flicker with annoyance of an unknown source. “Yes.”

“Please, continue.”

“It became clear within minutes that the Normandy would not be salvaged even if we did manage to escape. Commander Shepard ordered me to evacuate the remaining crew.”

“What happened after that?”

“On orders, I evacuated myself.”

“On Commander Shepard’s orders.”

“That’s correct.”

“What happened then?”

“I located and organized the survivors on Alchera once our pods had landed and waited for Alliance reinforcements.”

“The Reaper did not come after you?”

“I don’t have confirmation it was a Reaper, but the assailing vessel did not come after us, that’s correct.”

Chen crosses her arms and assesses Kaidan carefully. “Commander Shepard claims it was a Collector ship that destroyed the Normandy,” she offers eventually.

The information strikes Kaidan, inexplicably, like a blow to the gut. He resists the urge to turn and look at Shepard for confirmation. “On what intel?” he says instead, tone stiff.

“Commander Shepard’s testimony is that she and her crew boarded the Collector vessel in question and gained confirmation from their ship’s AI that the signatures were identical.”

Kaidan snorts.

Chen blinks at him. “You doubt this testimony?”

He squares his jaw and weighs his response, trying to remember Allison’s advice about not appearing hostile to Shepard. “I have no way to confirm or deny Commander Shepard’s testimony,” he acknowledges. “That said, given the size of the team Commander Shepard generally travels with, I find it doubtful she would have survived a drop onto a Collector vessel.”

“Why is that?”

“I had an encounter with the Collectors several months ago during my post on Horizon. Several thousand of the colony there were left paralyzed and helpless while they were evacuated by the Collectors. No one was able to help them, and that wasn’t even the full force of the Collector party.”

Chen nods and makes a note on her PDA. “For your reference, Commander Alenko, Commander Shepard reports that the Collector ship had been damaged and nearly abandoned by the time she boarded, if that assuages your misgivings. But since we’re talking about Horizon,” she continues, ignoring Kaidan’s bow of the head at having somehow introduced the very subject he most wanted to avoid, “Commander Shepard contests that she and her crew endeavored to help the colonists on Horizon during the very same Collector invasion. Can you confirm--”

“Is this relevant to the Reaper threat?” he asks immediately.

He knows it is; he knows he’s serving to frustrate the tribunal, and he can tell by the exasperated expression on Chen’s face that she’s onto him. Shepard undoubtedly told the tribunal that she’d tried to convince him the Collectors were affiliated with the Reapers on Horizon, and he was wasting everyone’s time, including his own.

Before Chen can respond to his question, Kaidan shakes his head. “I’ll answer it. I met with Commander Shepard and two of her crew members on Horizon after the Collectors retreated. They were unsuccessful in their efforts to help the colonists.”

“But they did try.”

“Shep -- Commander Shepard told me, at the time, that her goal was to help the colony. As she was in combat with Collector forces -- at least, I believe she was -- it follows that she was telling the truth.”

“You _believe_ she was in combat with Collector forces?”

“There were Collectors on the planet -- I saw them, they suspended me and several colonists in stasis -- and I heard Shepard in combat from where I was immobilized. I did not see the combat itself.” He’s rarely been gladder that Allison is his friend; his answers are coming easily, sound natural, and it turns out to be a relief that he feels confident he won’t incriminate either himself or Shepard in answering these questions. “Collectors make a telltale clicking sound with their mandibles. I heard such sounds between gunblasts in the same direction I heard Shepard. Seems likely that’s who she was fighting.”

Chen nods, apparently satisfied with his answer. “What else did you hear?”

Kaidan tenses as adrenaline pounds his system unexpectedly. He hasn’t spent much brainpower trying to process the abject fear he’d felt being unable to move while Collectors abducted Horizon residents right in front of him, or how ill he had felt hearing the fighting -- hearing Shepard’s voice _right there_ , just feet away, not knowing he was nearby -- and being unable to do anything about it. He fights to avoid looking at Allison for guidance. “At some points it sounded as though Shepard was fighting something considerably larger,” he says, slowly, after some consideration. “At other points, I heard a voice speaking that seemed to be targeting Shepard specifically. To my knowledge, Collectors don’t speak. I didn’t recognize the voice.”

Chen nods again and jabs at her PDA; Kaidan exhales and tries to steady himself. “So you were paralyzed by the Collector swarm while Shepard and her crewmembers were in combat?” Chen clarifies.

“That’s correct.”

“Why didn’t they become paralyzed by the Collector swarm?”

Kaidan feels himself hesitating. “I -- don’t know.”

Chen tilts her head and repositions. “Your service records indicate you were on Horizon for several weeks leading up to the Collector attack. Why?”

“As a tech specialist, I was assigned to fix the disabled defense towers already installed on the planet.”

“Was Horizon presumed to be at risk?”

“Other human colonies were being attacked at the hands of an unknown force. The Alliance felt it was prudent to send support to colonies they felt were at risk of attack as needed.”

“Attack by whom?”

“As I said, the nature of the risk was entirely unknown, except in terms of its catastrophic aftermath on other planets.”

“So you weren’t expecting the Collectors?”

Kaidan starts to say ‘no,’ but catches himself. “I had read the Alliance files on the Collectors and heard rumours, but they were far from a sure thing. To my knowledge I was not dispatched to Horizon explicitly on the basis of fighting Collectors, or I likely would have been given preparation specific to a Collector attack.”

“Who did you -- personally, independently from Alliance theories -- suspect were behind the attacks?”

He clenches his teeth. “For the third time, the nature of the risk was unknown to me. Is this relevant to--”

“Were you expecting Reapers?”

Kaidan struggles to keep his eyebrows from betraying his surprise at the question. “It had occurred to me,” he says non-committally, “but in my experience Reapers tend to destroy rather than capture. I thought it was more likely colonists were being captured for testing or experimentation.”

“By whom?”

“How is that relevant to the Reaper threat?” Kaidan asks calmly.

Chen seems to barely suppress a smile. “Commander Shepard testified that a Reaper calling itself Harbinger was controlling the Collectors to the point of taking command of their physical forms, one at a time, in an endeavor to lead the Collector charge against her and her crew. Is this correct?”

Kaidan frowns and replays the question in his head. “I … can’t confirm any of that, I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t true?”

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t witness anything that could corroborate that testimony.”

“Commander Alenko,” says Allison suddenly, standing from her place beside Shepard. “If I may interject?”

Kaidan looks to the tribunal. Anderson and Hackett both nod their okay, as does Chen -- thereby confirming for Kaidan once and for all that judicial impartiality was a myth.

“You said you heard a voice that was specifically targeting Commander Shepard while in combat with the Collectors on Horizon,” Allison begins. “Can you recall anything about what this voice was saying?”

He knits his eyebrows and thinks back. “With the understanding that I was putting considerable kinetic and biotic energy toward trying to break free of my paralysis, I heard primarily threats. ‘You will know pain,’ ‘Your death is assured’... There was one that was pretty gripping that I definitely remember.” He clears his throat and deepens his voice. “‘If I must tear you apart, Shepard, I will.’ You know. The usual promises of annihilation.”

Pham leans over to consult with Weiss on the bench, and Allison thanks him and takes her seat, battling a small smile. Kaidan tears his gaze from Shepard’s bench without actually looking at Shepard, somehow, and watches the tribunal with interest. Admiral Chen suddenly rounds on him, tapping the new information rapidly into the PDA. 

“You sound awfully cavalier about these threats, Commander,” she remarks loudly, drowning out the muttering that had emerged among the others.

“Well, the Commander’s crew survived,” Kaidan offers, confidence bolstered by Allison’s guidance. “All parties were standing when my paralysis wore off, and the Collector ship had retreated from the planet, as had most Collectors. The enemy might talk a big game, but it doesn’t mean it’s a match for Shepard.” He catches the fondness in his voice and drops it immediately, redirecting his instinct to look at Shepard into an awkward shrug instead. “But there’s no doubt it was harrowing at the time. I’ve never heard anything like it.”

“So as the Collector ship retreated, you stopped hearing the voice?”

“That’s correct.”

“And the paralysis wore off.”

“Yes.”

Chen nods and taps around on her PDA, but Weiss clears his throat from the panel before she can continue: “It’s a bit convenient, don’t you think Commander, that you and Shepard appeared on the same planet at the same time?” he accuses, apparently equally unwilling to mask his biases.

“Not at all,” Kaidan responds immediately, ignoring the indignation growing in his gut. “Commander Shepard arrived after the attack had already begun; I arrived weeks earlier trying to prevent one that hadn’t yet started. We were both trying to protect a human colony from attack. I’m sure our service records, if divergent in recent years, still both at least reflect a tendency to protect humanity whenever possible.” He offers a grim smile and ignores Anderson’s glare from beside Weiss. “I’m not trying to be glib, Admiral. It’s mere coincidence that Horizon was both the colony that was attacked and the one where I was stationed. Shepard would have gone wherever the attack happened to be.”

Weiss shakes his head angrily. “You happened to both have similar goals on the same planet at the same time mere months after her revival?”

Kaidan grits his teeth and urges himself not to ask for clarification on Weiss’ use of the word ‘revival’. “As I said, Commander Shepard and I have historically had similar goals,” he manages eventually. “I don’t agree with her methods, but I can’t fault her intentions.”

“To perpetuate domestic terrorism?”

“To defeat any threat to sanctity and harmony for sentient creatures.” Kaidan’s grip on calm is even and calculated. This is battle. Battle, he can handle.

“Unless they get in the way of human supremacy,” Weiss counters.

“Shepard’s not a supremacist,” Kaidan replies quickly. The words fall heavily over the room; he lets a beat pass and tries to keep his heart rate steady before the next question is asked of him.

“What makes you think this?” Chen asks him quietly.

Kaidan clears his throat. “Experience,” he says eventually. “She works _with_ alien species, all the time -- not against them. She has several non-humans on her crew. She had one with her on Horizon, helping her to save a human colony.” Kaidan shakes his head. “I don’t pretend to understand why Shepard joined Cerberus. I made that abundantly clear to her when we spoke on Horizon. But whatever her reasons for doing so, I don’t believe human supremacy is among her goals. That’s not who she--” 

Kaidan’s voice grinds itself suddenly to a halt. Silence falls over the courtroom. “That’s not how I remember her,” he finishes at last.

“But is this the same Shepard you knew?” asks Admiral Pham from the bench. “She was reconstructed. Scans reveal she is almost half-comprised of synthetic materials. Is it not possible her motives have changed as a result of having been literally _built back to life_ by the same human supremacist organization?”

Kaidan grinds his teeth; pauses; tries to get his heart rate under control. _Built back to life? What does that mean?_

Allison’s throat-clearing brings him back into the courtroom. Several seconds pass before he remembers how to answer. “How is this relevant to the Reaper threat?” he grinds, eventually, out from deep in his throat.

A murmur passes through the tribunal again. Chen turns to check with the other Admirals before continuing.

“Let’s talk about Commander Shepard’s crewmates a bit more,” she begins again, slowly.

“How is this relevant to the Reaper threat?” he repeats mechanically. His mouth tastes of metal.

“They were involved in the attack against the Collectors, who are being tied to the Reapers. Your defensiveness is not doing you any favours,” she warns him.

“I believe we dropped the pretense of testimony some time ago,” Kaidan replies. “This is an interrogation. But since I am not allowed legal counsel at a tribunal, I’m prepared to protect my own interests to the best of my abilities.”

Chen’s lips quirk into an annoyed smile. “I’ll limit my inquiry to the attack, then, Commander. Did you recognize the crewmates Shepard had with her on Horizon?”

Kaidan pauses to think about how best to answer this question. His thoughts are grinding together like rusted gears. “One was a human female I didn’t recognize. She wore a Cerberus logo on her armour. I can only assume she was with that organization.”

Chen nods. “And the other?”

He looks fleetingly at Shepard, despite himself, and he’s surprised into holding her gaze when he finds her staring evenly back at him. She seems to be watching his every move with intense interest, her eyes flicking up to meet his own as though she’d been watching every word out of his mouth rather than hearing them. Kaidan studies her carefully, at once furious and glad that he’d bothered to look at her at all; and it’s then that she blinks with imperceptible slowness, and then looks away -- something Kaidan interprets as a tacit indication of assent.

He realizes, suddenly, that non-humans can’t be requisitioned by the Alliance.

Kaidan again faces Chen, the image of Shepard staring him down stubbornly imprinted on his irises. “The other was a turian by the name of Garrus Vakarian,” he says.

“Oh come on, Kaidan, you couldn’t have kept that quiet?” Shepard interrupts. He suffers only a second of confusion before he figures out from her tone that she’s putting on a show to take the attention off his hesitation to answer the question.

“I just said I intend on protecting my interests, Shepard,” he replies loudly. “I’m not losing my job for lying for you, and I’m certainly not going to jail.”

Shepard scoffs and shifts in her chair. After a requisite moment of muttered interest from the tribunal, Chen rounds on Kaidan again. “You’ve encountered this turian before?” she asks.

“He was on our crew on the SSV Normandy,” he explains. “I worked closely with him at times.”

“Can you give us any indication as to why Garrus Vakarian would have been working for Cerberus?”

“I doubt he was,” Kaidan says quickly. “Odd for a turian to work for a human supremacist organization. More likely he was working for Shepard.”

“Who _would_ work for a human supremacist organization?” Pham asks from the bench.

“ _No._ ” He feels angry, first, that this line of questioning has somehow returned, and angrier still about his inability to filter his actual beliefs from his testimony. It’s then, with a heavy intake of breath, that he realizes that the jig is up: He’s not going to get through this testimony with his impartiality intact. 

Suddenly, it’s a relief to stop masquerading for himself, let alone for the tribunal; suddenly it feels all right to be honest for a minute instead of being tactful. 

With a slow exhale, he says it again, letting the truth of it seep out of his pores, horrified as much as he was comforted to see it laid out before him. One way or another -- whether this is Shepard or not -- he knows he can say this much and still have it be true: 

“That’s not the Shepard I knew.”

Weiss rises noisily from his chair across the room. “And would the Shepard you knew,” he begins majestically, speaking as though the floor had been his all along, “have knowingly caused the destruction of an entire solar system, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of batarians -- among countless others we may never properly account for -- on the alleged threat of a species we don’t even know truly exists?”

The blood rushes in Kaidan’s ears. It seems all he can hear is his own heartbeat, and he feels the words leaving his mouth before he hears them. The sound seems to barely drag out of his throat, navigating unskillfully around the lump that has formed as he, too, rises to his feet:

“Excuse me Admiral, but where the hell were you when the Citadel was burning?”

Allison, Anderson, and Hackett each rise to their feet almost in time with one another as Kaidan breathes heavily at Weiss across the room.

“Commander,” Anderson warns him from the bench.

“If there are no further questions about the Reaper threat, I’d like to end my testimony there,” he says only. His voice is back to full strength, but the words taste of bile on his tongue.

“Granted,” Hackett and Anderson say simultaneously; and Kaidan turns to walk stiltedly out the door, making sure to keep a reasonable pace, his back rigid, shoulders squared.

He makes it out the door of the building, across the courtyard, and all the way back to his office before finally losing his breakfast into the trash vaporizer.

Then he shuts the blinds, locks the door, and opens as much material on Khar’shan -- or what’s left of it -- as he can find.


	10. Normandy - 2186 || 2185 - Vancouver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These final chapters assume the events of [Arrival have occurred and that the Bahak system has been destroyed by Shepard's interference.](http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Arrival_\(assignment\))

  


  


**// N O R M A N D Y --** 2186 **//**

 

The caffeine is kicking in, and Kaidan suddenly registers Shepard looking at him with intense scrutiny from across the counter.

“What?” he asks gruffly.

“When did mornings get this hard for you?” she asks, completely sidestepping any opportunity she could’ve given him to escape the conversation.

He waves a halfhearted hand. “Not that bad.”

“How long ago did you crack those eggs and forget about them on the counter?”

“They’re fine. Don’t eggs that lose their shells find new homes to live in? Or is that just turtles?”

She besets him with no-nonsense eyes. “You’re barely conscious.”

“Who is at this hour?”

“Marines, generally. You used to be the most obnoxious morning person I knew.”

“Well, I’m a Spectre now. New rules, remember?”

“Stubbornness and glibness both intact. I guess things could be worse.”

Kaidan snorts. “More than three years since you last had a lot of insight into my mornings--”

“Say, if I spent two years dead,” she interrupts, giving the impression of not having heard a word he said, “how many years older than me does that make you now?”

Kaidan blinks. “Don’t … let me think about that too hard.”

“At least you outrank me now. I mean, officially. _That_ could've been embarrassing for you. If I'd been two years dead and you'd _still_ been beneath me...”

He flinches and tries to send his brain in a different direction than where it's trying to drag him. “Are we approaching a point to this conversation, Shepard? If I’m going to remember how to shoot a gun today I’m going to need to stand under a scalding stream of water soon to try and burn this headache out of me.”

“I’m keeping you talking to gage your responses.” Shepard suddenly reaches out and pulls back Kaidan’s eyelid, shining a penlight directly into his eye.

“Ow! Hell, Shepard! You’d kick a man in the leg if he was complaining about a sore knee, wouldn’t you?”

She clicks off the light and frowns intensely at him. “Your responses are delayed, Kaidan.”

“It’s 06h00!”

“Is this your chip?”

“Oh, god, I’m not doing this now.” He sets his mug heavily on the counter and turns toward the men’s room, rubbing at his eye with the heel of his hand. “Ambushing crewmembers inappropriately in the mess, a guide, by Commander Shepard," he mutters to himself along the way--

But then, suddenly, she's pulling him forcefully away by the arm. “Get in the lift, you shitheel,” comes her voice in his ear; and before he knows what’s happening, she’s pulled him into its depths and already selected Deck 1.

“Why are you taking me to your quarters?” Kaidan would try to guess, but he strongly suspects he’d only embarrass himself.

“You’re going to shower there.”

“Uhh…”

“Don’t get ideas, Alenko. It’s so we can talk at the same time. No jokes about your hot bod, I’m not in the mood.”

“So you finally admit it.”

“I am a trained soldier, Kaidan.”

“I remember how to walk, Shepard,” he replies, blinking blearily as he pulls his arm out of Shepard’s grasp and trying to ignore her dubious expression as she punches in her access code.

“Go,” she instructs him, finally letting go and leaning herself against the wall by her desk. Her arms cross over her chest as he slouches into the shower, and she stares toward her bed with unwavering steadiness.

If it occurs to Kaidan to be self-conscious of the fact that he’s undressing in Shepard’s quarters for the first time in over three years, it’s buried under the stupor of the morning.

“I forgot my clothes again,” he remarks to no one in particular, once nude, from within the shower’s depths.

“I’ll get them,” floats Shepard’s voice from around the corner.

Kaidan struggles for some reply. “Uh, no? Don’t do that.”

“Kaidan, you’re on my crew.”

“Okay, but--”

“You’re on my crew, and I’m left to figure it out on my own when your chip starts to cause you debilitating pain on a daily basis?”

Kaidan groans. “I’m turning on the water now.” Water stutters down from overhead -- scaldingly hot, with no warming-up time -- and Kaidan feels instantly better.

“My voice carries,” she shouts over the stream, successfully breaking his reverie. “You’ve had the training, you can make yours do the same.”

“Please, Shepard. Shower.”

“Multitask. You have it in you.”

She lets him stand in silence under the water for two minutes anyway, and when he finds he can wrench his eyes open again, he sighs and tracks his hands through his hair. “You’ve seen me in the field. My responses aren’t delayed then.”

“I’m willing to bet they are, Kaidan.”

“I just got promoted, Shepard. By a lot. Like, six weeks ago. They tested me. So I’m definitely up to Marine standards. Hell, I’m up to Spectre standards. Seems to me you’re worrying over nothing.”

“You’re not up to _your_ standards.”

“Aren’t you … painting me up a bit here?”

“You’re going to argue you’re less of a Marine than I think you are?”

Kaidan shuts his eyes and leans into the water. “It’s just … we have bigger priorities than any miniscule drag in my response times right now.”

“Right. That explains why I’m having you shower in my quarters just so I can talk to you about this without risk of interruption.”

“Shepard, Earth is being eradicated by--”

“Oh, Christ, Kaidan, don’t give me that. Don’t you think I know that?” Kaidan feels a pang in his gut at the edge of desperation in her tone. “That’s what I’m _saying_. You’re on my _team_. You can’t be operating at sub-optimal capacity.”

“And I’m _not_ ,” Kaidan replies. “That’s what _I’m_ saying. It clears up after an hour. My memory is mostly fine outside of the first and last hours of the day--”

“Your _memory_ is suffering?”

Kaidan allows his head to rest against the wall. “Not all of it,” he admits tiredly. _I remember everything that has to do with you just fine._

“How are your biotics?”

“You’ve seen me fight, Shepard. You tell me. How do I seem?”

Kaidan feels faintly relieved that the lengthy pause is not originating from him, for once. “You seem competent,” she says, eventually, reluctantly.

He pumps soap into his hand and tries to remember to be productive while he’s being yelled at in Shepard’s shower. “Shepard, you know I’ll never pull rank on you unless I’ve totally lost sight of what’s good for me,” he begins, “but don’t forget that I’ve made Major. I recently came back from significant injuries and still managed to pass all my tests with flying colours. I led my own ops division back in the real world while you were off tracking the Collectors down, and now I’m a Spectre, just like you.” 

He looks over his shoulder before remembering that Shepard isn’t actually watching him shower. “Don’t forget, either, that this chip in my head -- the one that’s makes mornings suck mega krogan ass right now -- is what’s making all of that possible. Do I wish that, when this is all over, I could guarantee that I could get up at the crack of dawn with you and watch the sun rise over a peaceful Earth without being near-catatonic? You bet I do. But while I was lying in that hospital bed on the Citadel, watching the world fall to pieces around me while I sat still, I accepted the fact that maybe that’s not possible for me anymore.” 

He pauses to run his hands over his face before punching the water shut-off, then allows himself a moment or two to lean briefly against the wall, one arm propped in support. “But since it doesn’t seem that likely that we’re gonna live through this thing anyway,” he says to the wall, “I figure I’m probably not sacrificing much. As far as I’m concerned, right now, if an hour of fog in the morning is the cost I pay for helping to bring the Reapers down -- for being the kind of Marine you want by your side in the battle for Earth -- then it’s a cost I’m willing to pay. Full stop. And that’s not your call. It’s mine.”

Kaidan pushes off the wall and turns to find Shepard’s arm extended into the stall with a towel draped over it, her body turned away. “Thanks,” he mutters, lifting it gently away and turning his back to dry his hair. “My point is, Shepard, that even if you commanded me off my feet, it’s my prerogative both as my own person who makes my own choices _and_ as your ranking superior to get to say that that’s too fucking bad. And not to put too fine a point on the whole thing, but I’d rather not fight with you again if we can help it. We’ve wasted enough time butting heads, don’t you think?” He runs the towel over his face and tries to shake the final cobwebs out of his brain. “At the end of the day, I’m gonna be in this fight. You’re stuck with me. So my humble suggestion is that you just try to find a way to handle it. All right, Shepard?”

Shepard doesn’t say anything for a long time, and Kaidan worries he’s offended her enough that she’s abandoned him in her own quarters; but when he emerges from the shower with the towel tied around his waist, he finds her collapsed in her desk chair, hands over her mouth as though holding in some escaping terror.

She remains seated as she looks up at him, slowly. “Is it really that bad?” she asks. 

Her voice is deep, wavering in her throat. Kaidan opens his mouth, then shuts it again, frowning; he hadn’t thought this information would hit Shepard so hard. “I mean.” He presses his lips into a thin line, then shrugs. “It’s not … _yet_.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“Sorry. I kinda thought we’d given up on ‘reassuring’ a long time ago.”

She blinks at his half-joke, as though incredulous he would say such a thing at a time like this. “You can’t get your implant replaced with something newer?”

“I’d have to master all my abilities from scratch. Does that sound to you like something we have time for?”

“We might. This whole ... thing ... might take years.”

“Not if you have anything to say about it. Didn’t I just say I don’t want to argue? You’ve got me, Shepard, just as I am. The call is made.”

Finally, Shepard’s expression shifts -- a flicker at the corner of her mouth that might have, in another conversation, turned into that lopsided smile. She stands and rolls her shoulders idly. “Right. I am to -- what was it? ‘Handle it’?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replies, saluting lazily. “ _Handle it_.”

She shakes her head at him in disbelief. “You get one ops division assigned to you and turn into a different man.”

Kaidan smiles. “Same man I’ve always been.” The fog must be clearing; suddenly he wishes he could put a hand to Shepard’s neck and hold it there, as though to tell her in a gesture that he’s okay. “Just tripping over my own feet _slightly_ less often these days ... despite appearances. And, uh, I _made_ that division, for the record. Critical detail in your appraisal of my fitness for duty.”

“Ah, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.” She smiles gently, steps forward and then stops, focuses oddly on the centre of his chest with a thoughtful expression. “Sunrise, huh?” she says eventually, her gaze flickering up to meet his. She’s biting her lip -- nervous rather than coy -- but the question is direct, and Kaidan is caught off-guard.

He opens and closes his mouth, replaying the conversation in his head -- _get up at the crack of dawn **with you** and watch the sun rise_ , well, shit -- then shuts his eyes painfully and tries to explain himself. “I mean -- I didn’t mean…” He sighs and rubs a hand at his forehead. “I don’t have expectations,” he says. “Like I said, I’m pretty sure we’re all gonna die.”

“But you still think about what’s gonna happen. After it’s all over.”

Kaidan thinks, despite himself, about his lot in Halfmoon Bay. He turns his face away. “Yeah. I do.” A beat passes; he meets her eye again, no longer sure if the pounding in his head is from the implant or the tension between them. “Don’t you?”

She’s staring at him with an inscrutable expression, and he wonders if this is the first time she’s tried to talk about a future since the Reapers attacked. “I do,” she says quietly.

He feels the smile tug at his features and quells it out of habit. “Good,” he tells her.

Her eyes tighten; her expression looks pained. “You think so?” She is really asking.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding; then, before he can talk himself out of it, he’s set the pads of his fingers over her jawline, allowed his thumb to rest against her cheek -- the barest of touches. “This war isn’t going to be won without hope for a better future. That includes yours, Shepard. God knows you deserve it.”

Shepard’s eyes flutter closed, and she leans, just incrementally, into his touch. Her hand flies up to meet his, and Kaidan takes the hint and moves to take his hand away; but then, to his surprise, Shepard presses it closer instead of letting him drop it -- sets his palm flush against her cheek and holds it there. 

He stills, clenching his other fist against his thigh, furious in this moment that he’s naked except for a towel. There’s definitely no reasonable standard by which he could wrap her entirely in his arms like this, no matter how desperately he may want to.

Shepard’s eyes open; she gives her head a shake, moves Kaidan’s hand from her face and lets go of it, though not before squeezing it lightly, almost imperceptibly. “I’m sorry,” she says, frowning at some spot on the floor behind him and clearing her throat. “I didn’t mean to -- make something of nothing.”

Kaidan waits, but Shepard doesn’t continue. He shakes his head. “Don’t be,” he says only.

She waves a vague hand and takes a step back; Kaidan interprets it as a distancing gesture and stands up straighter, trying to find something casual to do with his hands. “It’s easy for me to fall back into old habits when I get stressed,” she says. “This is a bad idea.”

Kaidan blinks several times in a row, trying to make sense of this statement. “Okay,” he says, because he has to say something.

Shepard stares through him, as though willing her eyes not to wander. “You … need clothes.”

“Ah, yeah.” He smiles sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “We have to stop meeting like this. Or at least maybe meet like this … on purpose … if we’re gonna...”

He looks up to meet her gaze again. She purses her lips and says nothing, looking away.

“Shepard,” he gravels. “If there’s anything--”

“Feeling better?” she interrupts, crossing her arms tightly across her chest.

“Yeah.” He swallows. “A bit. I’ll be up to speed before you know it.”

She looks at him then, circumspect. Kaidan shakes his head. “You have enough to worry about without worrying about me, Shepard,” he reminds her. “I’ve lived the last three years without your watchful eye and I’ve managed just fine.”

Shepard frowns. “You sustained brain damage,” she points out.

He gives a quiet snort of laughter. “Yeah, okay, fair point. But I also got into really good shape. Not a bad tradeoff.”

Shepard cracks a smile and looks at him through her eyelashes. “Okay. This is … You should go.” She repositions herself, cracking her back and walking away from him, down toward her bedroom. “Deal with those eggs in the mess before you suit up, though, will you? Garrus doesn’t deal well when anything bird-related is out in the open.”

Kaidan nods, then frowns as he processes. “Bird-related?”

“Something about how turians descended from -- you know what, nevermind.” She smiles grimly and looks up through the glass. “Suffice to say he prefers to pretend humans don’t have anything to do with them.”

Kaidan grins at her widely.

Shepard glares and points at him. “Whatever you’re thinking -- don’t.”

“Of course not.”

“Kaidan. I mean it.”

“Shepard. You know I’d never do anything to make anyone aboard this ship intentionally uncomfortable.”

“You and Vega have been pranking each other back and forth for three weeks.”

“Pranking? No, no. Friendly … Alliance … training exercises.”

“I’m Alliance too, you know. That’s not gonna work on me.”

“You’ve been out of the loop for a while, Shepard. Just saying.”

She points toward the door. “Out.”

Kaidan flashes her a grin and gestures at his waist as he backs toward the exit. “If you don’t mind loaning me the towel? If you’re willing to risk the rumour mill, that is, I can always change back...”

“No, take it.” Shepard smiles “Besides, I wouldn’t be the one in trouble this time.”

“Oh, I see how it is.”

Her expression takes on a wistful quality as she walks back out from behind the glass and leans against the fishtank. “Don’t waste too much time putting whatever it is you put in your hair. We drop in half an hour.”

He pauses in the doorway, turns to face her again. “You sure you trust my responses? I can sit this one out.”

Shepard evaluates him seriously. “What I can definitely trust is your ability to step back when you need to,” she tells him, thoughtful. “I’m still getting reacquainted with you in combat, but it’s obvious you’re a good enough soldier to know when to take yourself out of the field to avoid causing harm to the rest of your crew. There’s a lot of us, and I don’t want you to over-extend yourself. I’m trusting you to make that call when you need to without my giving you orders. Can you do that?”

Kaidan holds her gaze and frowns, at once frustrated that she’s unwilling to let this go and touched by her concern. “I can,” he gravels finally. “Can you?”

She gives him a sad smile. “That’s the difference between you and me, Kaidan. You can afford to take a break when you need to. I can’t.”

Kaidan shakes his head. “That’s bullshit, Commander,” he counters immediately.

“Rank or not, Alenko, _you’re_ on _my_ crew. Don’t you forget that.” She points sternly to the door, but Kaidan takes note of the sorrow in her eyes. “Now vamoose.”

Kaidan decides to give up for the time being -- if he’s gonna get anything past Shepard, he’s gonna need full use of his faculties. He tugs at his hair as he backs toward the lift. “Va mousse?”

“I -- wow.” She shakes her head, subduing a smile. “No. Leave.”

Kaidan grins and looks up at her, with one of her legs propped against the other, the tension in her shoulders the only indication that she is anything other than relaxed. He takes her image in, and breathes.

“You know we’re gonna get through this, Shepard,” he says, standing in the middle of the elevator without moving. "You’ll make it happen. No doubt.”

She blinks up at him, then looks abruptly away, stares instead at a spot on the floor; and he’s immediately reminded of the moment of eye contact shared in Alliance custody after her arrest the year prior. “Go,” she says only.

Every muscle in his body screams at him to stay, but, with a nod, he slams the button for Deck 3 without another word.

The doors shutter closed, and the sudden chill of the lift bites at him as he sinks deeper into the ship, as though to shame him for leaving her like that.

Again.

He makes a promise to himself -- to the both of them -- that he will never to do it again.

  


  


**// V A N C O U V E R --** 2185 **//**

 

Allison’s prediction had been way off; it hadn’t taken a year to complete Shepard’s trial. Her sentence was handed down right before the holidays, just three months from when the 'tribunal' began: Relieved from active duty, credentials suspended, with Alliance-provided quarters to be established in an official detention centre until further notice.

“She requested -- no, requested isn’t even the right word. She downright _begged_ to be allowed to stay at work.” Allison giggles and pours herself another glass of wine. “So they hired her as a civilian. She’s pushing papers at a minimum security detention centre in an administrative role for the Alliance. She got off incredibly easy. I am an incredibly good lawyer.”

“Did you just giggle?” Kaidan frowns. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

He gives her the side-eye. “Okay. Who is it?”

“No one!”

Kaidan stares at her as she hums to herself and traces the rim of the bottle with her finger; and suddenly comprehension dawns on his features. “Oh my god. You’re a little bit in love with her too, aren’t you?”

“Who??”

“Shepard!”

“No!!” Allison’s tone tells Kaidan all too clearly that she’s far too drunk to lie properly. “She’s my _client_.”

“When has that _ever_ stopped you before. Remember Morgan?”

“That wasn’t even real.”

“What about Carissa? That relationship lasted almost two years!”

“Oh my god, okay, fine, but Shepard hasn’t looked at me sideways since I started representing her, so you can chill the fuck out.”

Kaidan stares at her in disbelief. “Don’t do this to me, Allison, please.”

“Yeah yeah, I know you had veto a long time ago, I get it. Hey, guess where her detention centre is,” Allison tells him gleefully.

Kaidan stares at her, horror spreading slowly over his features. “No,” he says faintly.

“Yep,” she replies, grinning. “Right here in rainy Vancouver.”

The floor is falling out from under Kaidan’s feet. “Oh god.”

“Reconciliation is inevitable, Kaidan.”

“Oh my god! No! She’s a traitor!”

“Would you testify to that in a court of law? Oh, wait, we already tried that, and you couldn’t.”

“Why, Allison. Why would you do this to me.”

“I didn’t do it. Shepard tried to get out of it too; something about it being ‘not her turf’. She would’ve preferred London if she was meant to stay on Earth. But Vancouver is what she was ordered.”

“The universe is testing me.”

Kaidan is pinching his nose with his head bowed, but he knows Allison is watching him, waiting for him to look up again. “What,” he mutters eventually, looking up at her through his eyelashes.

“She asked about you again,” Allison says gently.

He groans at the ceiling. “I don’t! Care!”

“Why not?” It’s a genuine question, couched in a sympathetic tone, but Kaidan still collapses onto his forearms and fake-sobs at the table instead of answering.

“Allison,” he whines, “please. She committed _genocide_.”

“She was never convicted of that.”

“Wow. You’re _such_ a lawyer.”

“An excellent one. See above, re: acquittal. We’ve been over this. Credit where it’s due, if you don’t mind.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that she committed the crime--”

“In the eyes of the law, she _didn’t_ commit the crime.”

“I don’t _have_ the eyes of the law.”

“And yet you’re so willing to condemn her as though you do.”

“Okay--” Kaidan looks up and squints at her annoyedly. “What is this? What are you doing here?”

“Look, I just -- I can see that she’s lonely.” Allison grimaces and swirls her wine in her glass, apparently unable to look Kaidan in the face. Some tinge of pink shows in her cheeks. “She hasn’t been allowed to communicate with anyone outside the Alliance since the Normandy was taken in. Most people have treated her like shit, except Anderson, who -- besides me -- is kind of her only visitor. I can tell she chose me to represent her because she saw me with you the day she was taken into custody. She wants … someone to connect with.” She purses her lips and meets Kaidan’s eye at last. “She connected with you, once.”

“Yeah, before she quote-unquote _died, joined Cerberus, and committed genocide,_ ” Kaidan reminds her fiercely.

“She wants to explain herself. I think she’d prefer it if you didn’t blow your top in the process, though.”

Kaidan makes a disgusted noise and shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Why is any of this my problem? She -- Allison. _God._ You’re the one who’s been on my ass for the last god knows _how_ long, telling me to _move on_. Guess what? Turns out the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of batarians is what it takes to get me there. Are you hounding me about this now just because you’ve developed a sympathy for her? She’s asking about me? That’s not my problem! I’m not gonna sit here and let you guilt me for finally reaching a position I’ve been trying to get to for almost three years. Jesus Christ. Let me fucking live.”

He takes an angry swig from his beer, and Allison watches him, not bothering to be hurt by his outburst. It is this quality, more than others, that has allowed them to remain friends through the last several years: that she will accept his anger and wait for him to take it back, trusting that he will.

Invariably, he does.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He clenches his hand around her forearm and squeezes, and she wastes no time in wrapping her fingers around his hand and squeezing back.

“I think,” Allison says slowly, “that you should talk to her.”

“I think,” he replies, voice thick with false patience, “that I should never, ever do that again.” He takes his hand back and presses its heel against his temple.

“I think that you will never truly find closure until you ask her what happened.”

“I think that I know enough.”

“I think,” she goes on, ignoring his frustrated wheezes, “that in a couple of weeks, you will be back to believing that she is better than you believe she is right now. And I think on that day you’ll be really grateful she’s still in Vancouver, because you actually will be able to talk to her. And _then_ , I think, you may be able to get closure. Because only she can apologize for quote-unquote 'dying' on you, Kaidan.”

Kaidan has nothing to say to that. He takes another swig of his beer.

“Three hundred thousand, Allison,” he mutters to his hands. “ _Three hundred thousand._ ”

“I _think_ ,” she says again, clearly aiming to remain delicate in her word choice, “that if you were ever caught in the same position she was in … you probably would have made the same choice.”

He looks up, at that. “Christ, really? Is that what you think of me?”

Allison cracks a hesitant smile. “I think that you and she are very much alike.”

Kaidan is stunned. “I -- have never been told that before.”

“You think it’s a compliment, don’t you?”

Something churns in his gut. He does. “I wouldn’t commit genocide,” he protests.

“Right, but … of _batarians._ ”

“No.” He drops a hand to the table and looks at her seriously. “Don’t even joke like that, Allison.”

She purses her lips and finds sincerity. “All I meant -- okay. Here is what I _think_. I think that Shepard had a choice, and I think she made the right one given her options.” Allison ducks to catch his drifting eye. “If _you’d_ had to -- if it had been you in her place -- wouldn’t you have sacrificed the few for the sake of the many?”

Kaidan shuts his eyes, and swallows. “Goddamn you, Allison,” he husks.

Allison grins around the lip of her glass. “You love me.”

“Yes. When it’s quiet time.”

“You’re just angry because I’m right.”

“I’m _angry_ because you give inconsistent advice. I’m gonna go talk to her, now, thanks to you. I hope it’s everything you dream it’ll be.”

She bites off a sigh and shakes her head in Kaidan’s direction. “You were happier when you had Shepard to believe in, Kaidan, and she was happier when you believed in her. Truthfully, I just want both of you to stop complaining to me.” She holds her wine glass to her lips, staring into the depth of the room as though she has _seen things_. “Y’all are both annoying as shit when you’re miserable.”

Kaidan tries to subdue the smile from spreading over his face, but he fails by a mile. “I do love you,” he mutters, drunk enough to say it.

“I know, Kay. I love you, too.”

They sit together in silence for some time.


	11. 2185 -- Vancouver Alliance Administrative Holding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this chapter contains no 2186 | Normandy element that usually precedes the 2185 segment.

  


  


**// V A N C O U V E R --** 2185 **//**

 

Part of him hopes she’ll be asleep -- and yet, he knows she won’t be.

This is -- at last -- the moment of truth. Kaidan’s worked too many nights past midnight in his office, lately, ducking into quarters for five hours of sleep before getting back at it again. The pressure has built and built under his skin, and he’s been forced to action by its thrum. He’s completely caught up on his own work, reports included; Anderson won’t give him any new assignments, citing “a strange look in your eye” and “the Alliance has labour regulations, Alenko” as alleged excuses, and he’s run the backstory on Shepard’s trial, on her last two and a half years, ragged with rereads. 

The only thing left to do, if he wants to have a moment’s peace, is to talk to her in person.

Yet in spite of the lack of other available options, he still stops dead when he reaches what he knows to be Shepard’s quarters (or rather -- cell). He stares the door down, as though it, too, has a reason to yield to him; then, cowed into submission by its impenetrability, he steps meekly forward, leans his forehead against the cool steel of her door -- and listens.

The night is still, as though to reflect his apprehension. The glass of the bottle feels cold in his hand; the gentle hum of heat generators is still audible despite the rain slamming itself against every available surface of the building.

It also happens to be Winter Solstice. It’s … almost poetic.

With a final courageous breath, Kaidan steps back and -- setting his fist gently against the door and giving himself another moment to breathe, to shut his eyes, to confirm with himself that this is what he wants to do -- he _knocks._

It’s too gentle, too characteristic of hesitation, and he wonders if she could even have heard the softness of the tapping over the sound of her own thoughts. But then something in the air stills, and he _knows._ He imagines Shepard sitting at attention on the bed or at her desk, dropping her focus from any thought of work and reaching for a sidearm that isn’t there. 

“Hello?” she asks after a few moments, as though wondering aloud if she’d imagined the sound.

It takes him a few tries -- a few parts of his lips and mindless syllables cracked through a throat suddenly parched -- but finally he croaks out a fragmented sentence that even manages not to be an accusation:

“Solstice nightcap?”

The air thickens again with some combination of relief and dread. He wonders who she thought was there -- maybe someone with a notice out for her name? She has no shortage of enemies. Kaidan realizes that she must really struggle with not being able to escape, with not being able to rely on the certainty of FTL travel every time there’s an enemy in the vicinity, and he feels a pang of sympathy before it is immediately smothered by anger at himself for feeling any such thing.

The blinds shutter open in the window next to the door to reveal a decidedly after-dark Shepard: her usually-tight bun is loosening into wild strands, her face oddly pale and soft. Kaidan realizes he has never spent very long around her when she wasn’t at attention, when her features weren’t made sharper by the focus required by missions, and he feels taken aback to see her like this. Her military posture, too, has been somehow domesticated, her usually square shoulders rounded considerably by what appears to be a housecoat.

“Are you wearing pyjamas?” Kaidan asks suddenly, too surprised to stop himself; then, immediately mortified, he ducks out of Shepard’s view and begins mouthing profanities to himself.

When he finds the courage to step into Shepard’s line of sight again, she’s still staring out at him through the window, eyes narrowed in suspicion and defense. 

_Well, that looks more like her,_ he thinks, emptily.

“It’s after midnight,” Shepard argues shortly. “Why aren’t _you_ in pyjamas?”

He shrugs and holds the bottle of whiskey aloft, one finger holding precariously onto a plastic cup he’d salvaged from his office’s kitchen. “Couldn’t sleep. And, uh, you’ve been on my mind since the tribunal wrapped up, so, I, uh … thought we might...” He makes some wild gesture at the pane between them, then shrugs again. “I’d offer you some, but you’re, uh, in custody. So.”

Something in Shepard’s expression shifts; then she disappears briefly before the blinds lift mechanically and begin to clear the window entirely. Kaidan cocks his head and stoops beneath the rising line of the blinds, surely appearing too eager to catch a glimpse of her as the window clears. She has retreated into the depths of her quarters -- _cell_ , he thinks again to himself, although it’s clear from the decor and amenities within that it’s an administrative confinement and that her liberties have otherwise not been all that terribly restricted -- and finds her lifting a bottle of something from some table.

“So,” he says as she returns with a bottle and a glass of her own. “Jail. Where they let you have booze, and books, and what looks to be a fairly comfortable bed.”

“You should see the view,” she placates, handily pouring herself a large portion of brandy. “Hell, this place trumps my quarters on the Normandy.”

“Even the new ones?” he asks stiltedly, bitterness returning to his gut. Good to know his recent predilections for spitting bile haven’t entirely abandoned him.

Shepard’s mockery drops from her face. “Yeah, even the new ones,” she replies quietly. “Not as portable, though. Barely been out of here for months. Did you know they don’t want you to spend more than an hour at the gym at a time?”

“A true tragedy,” Kaidan replies, deadpan. He turns away, suddenly unable to look at Shepard in boxer shorts, a tank top, and a housecoat -- a legend made tame by her surroundings. It’s what he’s wanted all this time, to see her off her guard, but now that he’s here, it looks wrong. To be so well-rested, to be without her uniform, without armour, without half a dozen weapons strapped to her back, without the steely gaze of unwavering focus -- it doesn’t compute.

“Are you okay otherwise?” he mutters.

“I--” Then she stops, looks up at him with wide eyes. 

Kaidan sighs his annoyance -- at her, at himself, at the both of them -- and turns his back to her, leaning against the window. He slides slowly down its surface, slowly unfurling his legs out in front of him as he sets himself on the floor. “Didn’t mean for that to be a hard question, Shepard." He unscrews the lid to the whiskey bottle and hears Shepard setting herself down on the other side of the wall too.

“I’m as well as can be expected,” she responds eventually. “I’ve done better than I should have. I’m fine.”

“You’re fine.”

“I’m fine. I’m grounded but not officially in custody, which somehow still involves rules and a curfew and mountains of paperwork. But I’m not in prison, and they gave me some pretty nice digs. So I’m fine.” Kaidan pours himself whiskey as she talks and scoffs when she’s finished, somehow annoyed at the answer. He can see her cock her head at him on the other side of the glass. “Did you come here to be angry with me for being fine?” she asks.

He sets the bottle down on the floor and screws the lid back on, idly, with one hand. “No,” he says quietly.

“So why--” she says, but cuts abruptly off; an audible sip later, she tries again. “Are _you_ okay?” she asks instead, tone controlled.

“I -- yeah.” Suddenly he understands why Shepard had a hard time answering the question. “I’m doing good. Work is … good.” He takes a drink. “I’m Staff Commander now.”

He turns his head to see her, smiling, out of the corner of his eye. “So I heard. At the tribunal.”

He nods. “I run my own spec ops division. Biotic youth. Good kids. It’s no Normandy, but it’s something.” He stares in front of him again. “It’s something real.”

“I’m glad, Kaidan,” she says sincerely.

The pause that wedges its way between them is too full and too awkward. “I used my clearance to get in here, you know,” he adds eventually. “After hours. Pretended I had official business, They let me do that.”

He hears Shepard breathing laughter at him on the other side of the pane; she fogs up the glass between them, and Kaidan leans into it, despite himself, as though he could feel the heat of her despite their barrier. “Impressive,” she responds only.

“So that’s what I’ve been doing for the past two and a half years,” he says, cheek flush against the chilled glass. “Climbing the ranks. Getting my own command. You know … no biggie. Hey, what have you been up to?” 

He peers out of the corner of his eye again and sees Shepard smiling sadly, swilling the liquid around in the bottom of her glass. 

“How long you got?” she mutters to the floor.

“No work tomorrow; holiday. I’m in no rush,” he replies.

She glances up at him, then quickly down again. It’s not shame this time; instead, it seems to be a sense of regret and contemplation, as though there is too much she doesn’t know how to explain. “Is there anything in specific you want to know? I assume you came here to ask me questions.” Shepard gestures wildly at nothing in particular. “Have at.”

Kaidan watches her for a moment, transfixed, his neck straining with the angle. “The word … ‘revive’ kept showing up,” he says at last. “In the inquiry records, I mean. Like … ‘after Shepard was revived,’ ‘at the time of Shepard’s revival’...”

Shepard is holding his eye, to her credit, her gaze interrupted only by blinks. “You’ve read the transcripts of the trials in full?”

He nods slowly. “Yeah,” he says. _A few times._

“Then you know my version of events.”

“That you woke up on a Cerberus operating table two years after the Normandy blew up ... with your face half cut-up, and a bit of a limp.”

She gives a beat before replying. “Yeah,” she says, as though acknowledging how far-fetched it sounds.

Kaidan gives an amused, cynical breath and shakes his head. “Then there was additional testimony sent in from an unknown source saying that someone had brokered a deal with Cerberus to rescue you from the Normandy wreckage. Now who would have that knowledge?”

“I was unconscious after the Normandy wrecked. Your guess is as good as mine on that one.”

“You were unconscious,” he repeats, halfway asking a question.

“Yes.”

Kaidan exhales and runs a hand over his face. “How long did you stay conscious after getting spaced?”

She cocks her head in the corner of his eye. “There was a blast from the Normandy that damaged my suit. I suffocated in seconds.”

“You suffocated.”

“Yes, Kaidan, I suffocated. Do you want details on what suffocation feels like? Will you believe me then? Because--”

“No,” he says quickly. “You suffocated -- to unconsciousness?”

Shepard pauses; Kaidan can’t bring himself to look at her to try to figure out her expression. “My understanding of the situation is that I was very nearly dead when they found me, but that doesn’t … sound right to me.” Her tone is subdued, honest. “I think Cerberus is holding back on me. I think they have technology they don’t want to admit to.”

“You think you were dead.”

“Yes.”

He’s read the inquiry transcripts enough times that he can see her words on the page just by thinking about it. “Because you were ‘unconscious’ for two years. Because it was days before they found you.”

She nods, swallowing, and somehow Kaidan hadn’t registered before now that this might be a difficult conversation for her to have, too. “Yes.”

“And -- just so I’m clear -- Cerberus found you on a … random tip?”

“I know as much as you do about Cerberus’ sources, Kaidan.”

He snorts laughter into his drink, incredulous.

“What do you want me to say?” she asks, already sounding tired of the conversation.

“I want you to tell me that you’re not some Cerberus synthetic wearing a Shepard mask,” he bites immediately, wrenching his head around to look at her again, emotion surging unexpectedly. “I want you to tell me that you didn’t willingly defect to Cerberus. I want you to tell me that you didn’t leave me to rot with grief while you _pretended_ you had died. I want you to tell me that you weren’t knowingly collaborating with them the entire time we--”

The silence is tense as his sentence cuts off, and Kaidan tries to kill his anticipation by taking another drink as Shepard processes his words. 

“What entire time?” she asks eventually, voice clipped with anger.

“The entire time that you and I were--” he stops again, redirects with his eyes tightly shut-- “serving on the Normandy together,” he grits out.

“You mean locating geth pockets? Fighting the Reapers? Sleeping together?”

“I mean the whole damn thing, Shepard, from the first second the Council turned us away and told us the Reaper threat wasn’t real. I want you to tell me that you didn’t look for someone else to fund your vendetta.”

“ _Vendetta?_ ”

“I want you to tell me that you were really being reconstructed while you were really unconscious on god knows where and that you didn’t just … leave for greener pastures.”

Shepard gives a noise of frustration. “Do you really think I’m capable of that?”

He shakes his head. “I really have no idea of what you’re capable of anymore, Shepard.”

The silence wedges between his ribs. He half expects her to move away, to relocate to the other side of the room, to look out over the city through the window with one hand resting on a cocked hip as she finishes her drink and to wait until he leaves. Instead, she presses her head against the window pane, staring into her glass with an expression of exhaustion and defeat. 

“After those last moments after being ejected from the Normandy, the next thing I remember was in May,” she tells him exasperatedly at last, choosing not to look up. “ _This_ May, Kaidan. This past May, I woke up, and I was on a Cerberus outpost that was being attacked by its own rogue VIs. The last thing I remember is ordering you into a shuttle and choking to death in the middle of deep space, and when I’d woken up, it was May.” She shuts her eyes and brings her glass back up to her lips. “I’m missing two years, Kaidan,” she continues without looking at him. “I can only tell you what I remember, and that’s it. I don’t expect you to believe me--”

“I don’t,” he says, quiet.

She bites back a bitter remark, setting her teeth over her lip. “But that’s what happened,” she continues. “I never knew I was in Cerberus hands during those two years -- because I was _unconscious_. I couldn’t have gotten in touch with you, because I was _unconscious_. I never wanted to be brought back, Kaidan, but I was. And that was Cerberus’ choice -- not mine. I did what I could with that.”

“Did what you could,” he repeats to himself, voice low, shaking his head.

“You’re not wrong that Cerberus allocated me way more funding than the Alliance ever did,” she replies angrily, “and look at the results: no more Collectors. Now we have more time to prepare against the next Reaper invasion, yes -- but I didn’t plan this. If you’re asking me to apologize for doing what I had to--”

“Doing what you had to!” Kaidan interrupts, voice exploding suddenly in the hallway. “Does that include the deaths of three hundred thousand batarians in the Bahak system?”

Shepard groans audibly, and Kaidan twists angrily around as well as he’s able from where he’s seated on the floor. “Am I boring you?” he hisses, voice wavering.

“Did you come here to put me on your own personal trial?” she says tiredly. “I’m sure you’ve read the files. You know everything I have to say about that.”

“You _destroyed a mass relay--_ ”

“I redirected an already-destructive force to help keep the Reapers from entering our system. I didn’t create the asteroid.”

“ _Three hundred thousand batarians,_ Shepard! Are you going to tell me that was a ‘necessary sacrifice’? Has Cerberus made you the kind of person who doesn’t bother trying to look for other solutions? Or was this about revenge for what happened on Mindoir?”

Kaidan has crossed a line; that much is obvious in the rigidity of her body language. She turns her head, very slowly, to look at him.

“Is that what you think?” she says, in a low voice. “That I am like they are? That I am as capable as they are of senseless slaughter?”

Even as he is seething in rage, he feels the urge to curl into himself with humiliation at the implication. “No,” he says finally. “I don’t. I didn’t … I’m sorry I said that.” He looks down at his hands and runs his thumb furiously over the line of his lip. “But I meant the rest.”

She shakes her head, and when she finally speaks, her voice is low and quaking in anger. “All right, Kaidan. You tell me what I should’ve done. Should I have allowed the Reapers to enter through the Alpha relay unopposed?”

“Not unopposed,” he protests.

“We had no time to rally the few people we’d been able to convince about the Reaper threat anyway. You know as well as I do the Alliance isn’t ready. The new Normandy is good, but it’s not that good. One Reaper alone could’ve easily sheared it in half. Listen,” she says over him when he tries to interject, “if you were in command of the Normandy, and there was an asteroid already prepped to destroy the relay, already heading in that trajectory, and all you had to do is give it another push and the rest of the galaxy has months to try to prepare for the invasion -- what do you do? What do _you_ do differently, Kaidan?”

“I find. Another. Way,” he grits out stubbornly.

“Another way to stop the _Reaper invasion_ …?” Shepard gives a dry laugh, something empty that rattles in Kaidan’s gut and dies in the form of acid. “Please, impart your wisdom. I’m dying to know. What’s your _better way_? How are _you alone_ going to stop the Reaper invasion when the time comes, _Staff Commander Alenko_? Or have you not thought that far ahead in your line of questioning?”

Kaidan sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He has not, in fact, come up with an alternative for what might’ve been done.

“It’s not that simple, Kaidan,” Shepard continues, tone slicing. “It’s never that simple. And it seems to me that you’re making a lot of judgments for someone who’s been stationed on Earth in ignorance of a lot of what's been going on up there for the last year.”

“What do you expect of me?”

“I expect _you_ , of all people, to cut me some slack.” She huffs her frustration and downs the remaining contents of her glass in one. “Kaidan, this is an infuriating conversation. It was infuriating on Horizon and it’s infuriating now. I’ve done more to earn your trust than I’ve done to lose it, and the fact you keep thinking I’ve somehow betrayed you, first just by _dying_ \-- the nerve of me! How _could I_ have suffocated horrifically in space! I can see how that could seem like a personal slight to you -- and then by doing whatever I’ve _had_ to just to try to keep this galaxy safe... Look, it was hard enough to accept that you didn’t want to lend a hand, after all we’ve been through together. But to find out that you’re having trouble just not being a hostile witness for me in an Alliance tribunal because your distrust of me runs just that deep … that’s a real blow, Kaidan.” She shakes her head and reaches furiously for the bottle of brandy. “That was hard to swallow. I really thought that, of all people, I’d have _you_ to back me up. But in spite of everything we faced together, you still can’t even acknowledge--”

Something in her voice hitches, and she turns her head away. Kaidan resists the urge to place his hand against the glass in solidarity; he doesn’t know what he feels anymore. 

“And yet in more ways than one,” Shepard continues after a second, voice shredded by emotion, “it’s actually a relief just to have this argument with someone who’s not trying to deny the Reaper threat on top of it all. Even while you’re sitting here accusing me of, of committing -- _revenge genocide_ \-- and defecting from the Alliance to _Cerberus_ , of all places -- that’s still a hell of a lot more than a lot of people have given me over the last six months. So I’m -- stuck, now, being somehow thankful to you just for showing up. I’m stuck being thankful to you for even bothering to launch these devastating accusations at me. Because even while you’re pissed at me for not dealing with the Reaper threat _well enough_ , at least you’re able to admit that it _exists_. That’s just how fucked up things are right now.”

She looks up at him, eyes shining. “You’re what I've got here on Earth, Kaidan. You’re my option. So what do I expect from you? I expect you to not be my enemy.” She shrugs and sets her glass gently against her temple, one elbow balanced against a bent and propping knee. “I guess I overestimated what that would look like.”

Kaidan holds her gaze for a long time, then drops it away at last, staring into the depths of his plastic cup. “I’m not your enemy,” he says gently.

Shepard huffs and fidgets uncomfortably. “Good,” she says nasally, after a while. “Because I’m short on friends on this god-forsaken planet these days.”

Kaidan sighs. “Well, I’m not sure I’m your friend.”

“Neither am I,” she agrees. “But beggars can’t be choosers.”

He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. “I wish we could share this,” he says, waving the bottle of whiskey in the air. “Does that count for something?”

“You’re here,” she says. “ _That_ counts for something.”

Kaidan repositions, curls up against the glass, and listens to her fidgeting on its other side. He’s never known her to fidget; but then, he’s never truly seen a woman of action stuck in a cage before. He’s never known her, either, after she’s died and been brought back to life by synthetic implants. He’s not sure why he expected her to be exactly the way he remembers her.

“Do you feel the synthetics?” he asks after a moment of stillness, too afraid to look at her as he does.

She clears her throat; when she speaks, her voice is firm again. “As in, in my blood?”

“No.” He snorts. He’s not sure if she meant it as a joke, but he’s relieved to hear her breathe her laughter, too. “Under your skin. Sometimes, in certain light…”

“You can see them.”

“Yeah.” He glances to the side. “Your cheeks have a … glow to them. Not now. More during the day.”

Shepard shrugs. She’s clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “Injuries are … different,” she explains. “Chakwas has had to learn some new healing techniques from Cerberus files. My understanding is that the implants get subsumed by my organic systems the more I heal, the longer I live. Eventually I should be indistinguishable from a -- regular human.”

“Whereas right now, you’re…”

“Part Reaper, obviously.”

Kaidan’s eyebrow quirks as he turns to look at Shepard more completely. “Funny,” he deadpans.

She shrugs, a half-smile apparent on her face. “You never really know with Cerberus.”

Kaidan’s smile drops suddenly and he looks again into the depths of the halls. “Chakwas, huh?”

“Yeah. She joined us when Joker did. We dropped her off on a border colony before heading to the Citadel. No need for her to face charges unless necessary.”

“Joker got off, by the way. Grounded, though.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“Right. Allison.”

“Yeah.”

He reaches for the bottle, trying to get her last comment from reverberating in his head. _You never know with Cerberus._ What did anyone really know about whatever it was they’d put under her skin?

“I have to ask you about the Alpha relay,” he husks eventually, hating himself.

Shepard sighs. “All right. What do you want to ask?”

“Tell me the truth.”

“If you’ll believe it.”

He narrowly aborts an eye-roll. “Look -- how is it that Commander Shepard of the SSV Normandy, literal death defier, can’t figure out a way to solve a situation without sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives in the process?”

“You weren’t there,” she repeats.

“I think that sometimes, Shepard … sometimes, when you can’t make an impossible choice -- you don’t.” He darts his eyes over to look at her again, but they settle mostly on her feet, curled up as they are on the floor beside her as she leans her body against the glass. “Given the choice between forcing the deaths of millions and fighting the incoming war with the next best effort … you choose the latter.”

“Those weren’t my options,” Shepard counters.

“No?”

“No. For one thing, I was under orders.”

Incredulous laughter bursts from Kaidan’s chest, involuntarily. “Were you!”

“Didn’t read _those_ files, I see.”

“What files? The only reports on the Bahak system are--” But then Kaidan turns to see her face, and falls silent.

“You’re only Staff Commander,” she murmurs, gently, under her breath. “You don’t have full clearance. There are still some things that remain out of your reach, Kaidan.”

He studies her carefully. “The _Alliance_ ordered you to destroy the Alpha relay?”

“Does that change things for you?”

From what he can tell, Shepard is, at least, not lying. “I don’t know,” he tells her.

Shepard shrugs, failing to conceal her annoyance. “They wouldn’t have given me these quarters if I was guilty of genocide, Kaidan.”

“You _are_ guilty of genocide.”

Shepard's head lolls back as she groans, exasperation renewed. “What would be good enough for you, Kaidan? If I’d achieved the impossible? I understand that you used to see me that way, but I’m not _actually_ a miracle worker." She exhales sharply. "Let me make it plain for you, Kaidan. I could not have stopped the Reapers from annihilating us months ago _and_ saved the batarians. If I hadn’t done as I was ordered -- and if I’d stopped the next guy Hackett undoubtedly had lined up to do any dirty work I might not have been willing to -- we would already be dead. You. Me. All of us. _That_ I know for certain.”

“So you resorted to _genocide_ to save--”

“Oh, don’t paint me up like some damned megalomaniac. Technically, I committed genocide against the Collectors, too. Tell me, Kaidan -- in your ideal world where I make perfect decisions, would _they_ live?”

“Shepard -- are you actually _standing by_ \--”

“Yes!” Shepard shouts, suddenly; and Kaidan jumps, wrenches to look at her, horrified at her conviction. “Kaidan -- I stand by _everything_. I know you came here to hear something else, but you wanted the truth, and the truth is that I would do it all again, exactly the same way.” She clenches one hand into a fist and presses it hard against the glass between them; looks at it as her knuckles whiten against the surface. “And I would bet money,” she says, forcing her voice into an unsteady whisper, “that you would have done everything I did, too. In my position. Exactly. The same. Way.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Kaidan counters immediately. “Not in a million years. I’d have sooner died than pledged allegiance to Cerberus just to further my own agenda.”

“ _My own -- Christ._ You’re not hearing me. I _never_ pledged allegiance to Cerberus. I _used_ them, to stop the Collectors -- same way you used the Alliance to try to stop Cerberus.”

Kaidan’s hands are unsteady with anger. “Don’t you dare compare my actions with yours,” he says, voice low.

Shepard clicks her tongue. “Oh, get off your moral high horse.” She looks at him with fire in her eyes. “Don’t act like I only think about myself. Are you forgetting how we parted ways in the first place? Was I consumed with my own agenda then?”

The sinking feeling in Kaidan’s gut serves to calm his anger into a more begrudging sadness. “You’re different now,” he whispers; and Shepard matches his energy, takes a breath, and sets her head back against the glass.

“You keep trying to convince yourself of that, Kaidan, but it’s just not true. I have always been exactly this way. We have disagreed over my methods before. You seem to keep forgetting that.” She sighs and fusses with her hair bun. “From what I can tell, it’s like this: we went through all this the first time around, and yet you’re _still_ blaming me for not doing well enough. You’re still throwing shit at me for not being flawless.” She glances up at him through weighty eyelashes. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think I might have made a mistake directing that asteroid into the Alpha relay. There isn’t an hour that passes where I don’t feel the weight of those losses in my gut; where I don’t question that decision. But I did the best I could with the information I was given and with the circumstances I had. And I don’t accept your judgments of me until you’ve been through the same hell that I have this year -- exactly the same way I don’t put up with anyone who gives me shit for not saving the Council three years ago. Okay?” Shepard sighs and sets a hand on her forehead, as though physically supporting the weight of her own judgments. “I did the same thing I always do: I make hard decisions. I don’t make perfect decisions. Can you accept that, at least?”

Kaidan closes his eyes and sets his head gently against the glass. “Okay,” he husks eventually, having lost several minutes to deep thought, opening his eyes blearily. “Okay, Shepard.”

She looks up at him from where her head was bowed, surprised. “Okay?”

“Okay,” he confirms.

“That’s it?”

“That’s all I came here for.”

“To ... hear that I'd do it all the same?"

“To find out if you were still you,” he replies quietly. “At least in part.”

Shepard looks at him, circumspect, before frowning and taking a drink. “Okay,” Shepard echoes.

“I’m not okay with your decisions, Shepard. That's not what 'okay' means.”

“I know that. Neither am I, exactly.”

“And now I know that.”

She shakes her head, declining to look at him. “You became kind of an asshole at some point over the last couple years, you know that?”

For some reason, this strikes Kaidan as funny; the breath leaves his lungs before he can reel it back. Shepard only looks at him, something like devastated anger on her face, and Kaidan forces his mouth back into a thin line. 

“I can go, if you want.” He shrugs lazily and waits until she looks at him again, regardless of her venomous expression. “Or, we can have another drink and talk about … something else. Up to you.”

She watches him carefully, but slowly, slowly, her features relax. “Something else,” she mutters after a while; but then she unfurls her limbs, pulls some table closer to her, so she can lean against it, facing Kaidan, stretching her feet out long toward him on the other side of the glass. “Like what?”

“I dunno. Just … catching up. Tell me about your squad. How’s Garrus?”

Shepard narrows her eyes and hides her mouth behind her glass. “No more angry questions?”

Kaidan rolls the whiskey bottle around deliberately by its rim on the floor. “I … actually didn’t totally come here tonight to interrogate you,” he admits.

“You didn’t?”

“I … well, I did. I wanted answers -- some, anyway.” He lifts the bottle into his lap and turns it over in his hands. “I think there’s a lot of ground to cover with us. And I think I need more time to figure it all out. But I … also came tonight to keep you company.” He grips nervously at the bottle’s neck and forces himself to sit still. “No one deserves to be alone on the holidays.”

Kaidan looks up at her, and she is staring straight through him, the way she always has. “That’s… unexpected,” she says.

He smirks, suddenly, and the corners of Shepard’s mouth relax into something that might’ve been a smile on a less heavy day. “Remember the Equinox we spent--”

“I remember,” she interrupts him immediately; and then she is smiling, shutting her eyes and turning her face away from him as though ashamed to have been loved by him once, and he is gritting his teeth and staring at his own lap and willing the flush in his cheeks to go away.

“Garrus is good,” she says after a while, breaking the silence at last. Kaidan resurfaces to watch her reaching for the brandy once again. “He’s branched out since C-Sec. You ever hear about a vigilante on Omega called Archangel?”

“Might’ve come across a file on something like that, yeah,” he replies, grinning despite himself as he unscrews the lid on the whiskey in turn; and just like that, he is listening to Shepard tell him tales from the Normandy as though it should be perfectly natural, and things finally, _finally_ start to feel just a little bit easier.

It’s not perfect. Maybe it’s not even 'okay' at all.

But it’s a start.


	12. 2186 - Normandy

  


  


**// N O R M A N D Y --** 2186 **//**

 

After Rannoch is liberated, when the Normandy comes in to pick them up directly, Shepard marches straight through the cargo bay, still in her armour, and goes directly into the lift -- weapons and all.

And Kaidan, who is still struck with disbelief at the fact that Shepard has actually faced a Reaper single-handedly and survived, follows her, still in _his_ armour, to stand in the lift at her side -- weapons and all.

They have not said a word to each other in hours. Shepard hasn’t so much as looked at him since she took the Reaper down. It’s as though she's afraid she might see something in Kaidan’s eyes that she’d have to answer to. Today, Kaidan has watched her lead them against countless waves of geth, against three geth prime at once, against a _god damned Reaper_ , until Legion found himself disabled at her feet -- and through it all, Shepard has been a paragon of stability. Unwavering. Unblinking. Unhesitating. A perfect soldier. But she still hasn't looked at him.

If Kaidan’s training has been good for anything, he thinks he’s probably looked the same way. At least, he hopes -- he imagines that’s why Shepard likes to bring him on the harder missions. But despite appearances, Kaidan, on some level, has been falling apart since Shepard dropped out of Legion’s shuttle and decided to take a Reaper on by herself without even so much as a consultation, which means that, somewhere under Shepard’s ironclad armour, she might be having a bit of a hard time, too.

So, yeah, he follows her -- even though she hasn’t looked at him in hours, even though they’re still in their gear -- and, when he moves to stand beside her in the lift, both of them staring ahead, she doesn’t object.

Neither one of them says a word as the doors shutter closed before them.

Only once the lift starts up does he look at her, and only then, just the once. She is still covered in dirt and oil from the planet, her face dusted with ash; and Kaidan resists the urge to brush a bit of blown tech from her shoulder as he faces forward again.

"Do you want to have a drink?" he asks, staring at the lift door.

In the corner of his eye, he sees her give a slow nod. "Yes," she says, quiet but certain. "I do."

The lift slows to a stop on Deck 2, and Kaidan likewise nods, all business, as he moves to disembark. "Starboard Observation Bay, say 19h00?"

"How's fifteen minutes?" she counters immediately.

Kaidan spins around with surprise and tries to subdue his smile. "You supply the brandy, I'll supply the whiskey."

"You've got yourself a plan," she says; and then, finally, her eyes lock with his in the split second before the doors close between them.

Kaidan stands perfectly still for a moment, blinking as he tries to process the ‘expectations vs. reality’ likelihood of how his night is going to go; then, slowly, he grins; steels himself; and swaggers into crew quarters.

“Holy shit,” Vega says as Kaidan walks in, spinning to his feet from the table where he, Traynor, Chakwas, and Garrus are playing cards. “You look like you’ve been through hell, Major. Why didn’t you take off your armour downstairs?”

“I’d tell you, Lieutenant,” he grins, unclipping plates from his arms, “but that would be classified.”

Vega snorts, clearly knowing better. “Is it done? The Reaper’s really dead? Should we assemble for a debrief?”

“No. Shepard … kind of took on the Reaper by herself?”

“For real? We thought that was bullshit!”

“And there were all these geth prime,” Kaidan continues as though uninterrupted, “and things were really heavy for a while, and now she seems kind of … I dunno. Like she needs to process.” He pauses and makes eye contact with Vega. “So, no. No debrief.”

“But … she’s okay?”

“Physically? Oh, yeah. No injuries, even,” he adds to Chakwas over Vega’s shoulder.

“Well, I’d better return to medbay just in case,” Chakwas mutters, rising to leave. “You never know what sort of bruises and lacerations might crop up in the coming hours.”

“So … walk me through this,” says Garrus from the table as Chakwas moves to the door. “Shepard said, ‘Hey! I’m going to take on a Reaper by myself, because that sounds totally sane as a plan.’ And _you_ said…”

“I mean … there wasn’t much _to_ say.” Kaidan shrugs. “She sort of jumped out of a moving shuttle and decided what was going to happen on her own.”

“So you just let her walk into a battle with a Reaper, single-handedly, without voicing any objection at all.”

“Come on, Garrus, you know how it is with Shepard. You think I had a damn bit of say in the matter? She grabbed the laser and took off, and the rest of us dealt with that.”

“Meaning you retreated.”

“Meaning we followed orders, yeah. I thought about taking the laser myself--”

“You should have,” Garrus interrupts.

Kaidan lets his mouth close. “Maybe,” he agrees. “But _you_ have no problem following her orders, and you’re not even Alliance, so I don’t see why I can’t make decisions about whose orders I follow just the same as--”

Garrus is shaking his head, mandibles clicking. “You’re _just great_ at following orders to retreat when it saves your own hide, aren’t you, Alenko?”

Kaidan blinks his surprise, then opens his mouth to retort; but Vega throws a hand out between them before he can get a word out. “Hey! Cool it.” James gets to his feet and stands between them, looking at Garrus. “We all know who’s boss here. Shepard says go, we go. Right?”

Garrus shakes his head again and throws his cards onto the table, staring Kaidan down as he gets to his feet. “Tali downstairs?” he asks, as though barely subduing a building storm.

“Cargo bay,” Kaidan mutters, cowing only slightly under Garrus’ considerable height, and Garrus sweeps past him without another word. Kaidan’s eyes follow him as he leaves, then snag on Cortez as he appears in the doorway, who likewise pauses to watch Garrus bluster past.

“Well,” Traynor says from her seat at the table. “Glad to see the two of you have settled your differences.”

“I didn’t know we had any,” Kaidan says. Cortez points at Kaidan and mouths ‘get your gear downstairs’ before clapping him on the shoulder, congratulatory, as he passes into quarters. “That’s … kind of an old grudge. Weird.” Kaidan frowns and glances at the door again, largely ignoring Cortez. “I’ll smooth it over later.”

“Settle down, boy scout,” says Traynor. “Not so sure this is something you can just ‘smooth over’.”

Kaidan raises an eyebrow, but then wags a finger. “Uh-uh, no. You’re not going to ruin my mood, and neither is Garrus, so you can aaaallll just save your energy.”

“Why?” Vega asks, returning to his chair and lending Steve a congratulatory high-five, apparently just for surviving a drop or two under Reaper fire. “You got a date?”

Kaidan only smiles. Cortez snorts lightly.

“You gotta be kidding me,” says Vega. “She finally caved?”

Cortez grabs Vega’s glass easily off the table, ignoring James’ objections. “They went right into the lift -- without taking off their armour, without storing their weapons…” Cortez shakes his head. “Animals. Textbook sexual ambush.”

Traynor and Vega chuckle wickedly while Cortez smirks around the rim of his glass. Kaidan rolls his eyes. “I’ll put it all away later,” he assures Cortez, leaning his rifle against the wall and removing his breast plate. “Right now, I gotta shower.”

“Whoa! High expectations!” says Vega, snatching his drink back from Steve.

“Good call,” Traynor calls to him around Vega’s form. “You look like the lovechild of dust and slime.”

“I’m not going to dignify any of this with a reply,” Kaidan says, ever-upbeat.

“Look at him,” Vega says to the others, conspiratorily. “This is the happiest I’ve ever seen him.”

“Well, you know what, Vega?” Kaidan asks, piling his arm high with clean clothes and looking at Vega with what he hopes is a moderately dashing expression. “I’m having a pretty good day.”

“You almost got dead!” Vega calls after him incredulously.

But Kaidan is all too content to leave them in their ever-mocking rebuke, sauntering toward the showers with a spring in his step and a song in his heart.

  


  


Kaidan has only been settled casually into his seat in the Observation Bay for a few moments, his eyes falsely focused on a PDA with one ankle hitched over his knee and a glass of whiskey balancing on his leg, when the doors hiss open.

Naturally, in the fifteen minutes since they’d parted ways, Kaidan has managed to have a lifetime worth of worry and doubts. About midway through his shower, the cheerful madrigal he’d been singing had trailed suddenly off into the first of his concerned thought derails ( _what if I did something wrong_ ), and by the time he’d mussed his hair into something that didn’t look totally ridiculous while still wet, he thought it probable that he might be about to be ejected out the airlock for some treasonous offense he hadn’t noticed he was committing at the time.

Yet, sitting on the observation bay bench, he’s certain he looks entirely calm.

Probably. Probably certain.

The whiskey is helping.

In accordance with his extreme desire not to immediately collapse into a puddle at her feet, Kaidan pretends not to notice Shepard’s entry into the room -- only holds his PDA more intently in front of him, in the hopes of appearing focused rather than as, more realistically, a disaster.

“EDI, lock external access to Starboard Observation Bay,” Shepard says, instead of hello.

“Of course, Shepard,” EDI chirps. The sound of disabling tech follows from behind him.

Kaidan looks up at her, then, with an air of what he hopes is mild but detached interest.

“That all right with you?” Shepard says, sitting down on the bench beside him.

“Sure,” he says, the image of coolness and calmness. “Whatever you want, Shepard.”

Her lip quirks, in acknowledgement or in mockery, and Kaidan smiles at her and sets the PDA aside. “You look better.”

“Needed that shower.”

“Yeah. Big day. Fought a Reaper.”

“Reaper fought me,” she corrects, pouring herself a sizeable brandy.

“Fair enough.” Kaidan squints at her as she pours, taking in as much of her as he can now that she’s seated willingly in front of him in close quarters. “Listen, Shepard -- are you okay? Like really, overall, not just in a limbs-intact way … _okay_?”

Shepard takes a drink before she meets his eye. “It’s complicated,” she says eventually.

Kaidan nods. “Okay.” He allows himself a second to look concerned, then rearranges his features and offers his glass in cheers. “I guess I can live with that.”

Then they sit in silence, staring at each other with no apparent conversational recourse.

“So, do you want to talk, or you wanna drink?”

Shepard’s eye flicks to the side before meeting Kaidan’s again. “Well … let’s start with drinking,” she mutters.

Lost on her meaning, Kaidan appraises her carefully; then, unexpectedly, Shepard’s lips crack into a wide smile as she holds his eye, which she immediately hides behind her glass of brandy.

Kaidan cocks his head. “Am I misinterpreting this, Shepard?” he asks, a similar grin spreading across his face despite his clearly _unparalleled_ capabilities of self-control.

Shepard shakes her head, moving her glass at last to reveal pursed lips. “I’m experiencing a lot of emotions right now, Kaidan,” she admits. She waves a hand as though to exorcise some tension out of her chest. “Let’s keep up with the drinking and see what happens.”

“All right,” he agrees. 

As the seconds tick by and Kaidan continues to have trouble getting his face to conform to his preferred standards of indifference, he decides to focus on his breathing. His heart rate has sped up considerably, either from the sudden introduction of booze into his system or from the soaring realization that he is totally _not_ here to be yelled at; and Shepard is looking away from him, out toward the stars, her hand tensing around her glass as though possibly battling a similar reaction.

“Emotions, huh?” he says after a long pause, apparently unable to handle himself whatsoever.

“Don’t be an ass about this, Kaidan. Please. I’m asking you as a favour.”

“Caught some _feelings._ ”

“Just,” she whispers, setting her glass against her temple, now. “It’s been a strange day.”

Kaidan takes a swallow of whiskey into his throat and lets it sit, in case the burn reminds him of what it’s like to be a grown-ass adult. “Okay, fair enough,” he says, and joins her in staring out into space.

“Do you believe in a higher power, Kaidan?”

Kaidan’s gaze snaps to her, but Shepard is too busy delicately unscrewing the lid on her bottle of brandy to meet his eye. 

“I’m not sure,” he says, slowly. “I haven’t given it much thought. Why? Do _you_ believe in a higher power?”

“I think,” she says, “that there’s a lot that doesn’t make sense.”

“All right,” he says. This conversation, at least, is calming him down. “Like what?”

“Like the fact that I’m alive.”

He nods suddenly. “Yeah, okay. I’ll give you that one. That is pretty wild.” He raises his eyebrows at her. “I’m not sure Cerberus counts as a higher power, though, Shepard.”

“I’m not talking about Cerberus,” says Shepard. “Kaidan, how did I survive the Collectors? How could I have?”

“Skill,” he provides easily.

She blinks, as though annoyed he should find the answer so quickly. “Just skill?”

“That’s what I’m saying, Shepard. _Skill._ ”

“No.” She shakes her head. “ _Luck._ ”

Kaidan opens his mouth to reply, but then considers this more closely. “Maybe a bit of luck, too,” he admits. “We’ve all been lucky.”

“Legion wasn’t lucky.”

“Oh. _Shepard._ ” He sighs, annoyed with himself for not cluing into this sooner. Of _course_ she’d be mourning the loss of Legion. “I’m sorry.”

“Mordin,” she continues without acknowledgment. “Eve. Ashley.”

“Shepard. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“How did Cerberus know where to find me?”

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“How did I survive suffocation? How _could_ I have? Being torn apart and put back together with synthetics has nothing to do with skill, Kaidan. And now -- how did I survive a fucking _Reaper_?” She looks up at him. “Who the hell is in control? Because it sure isn’t me.”

Her hands shake, and Kaidan sets his drink aside, reaches out instinctively to grab them with his own, before he can think long enough to second-guess himself. “Shepard,” he says, edging closer to her on the bench. “You are -- eternal. You are too big for the world to keep down. It doesn’t matter why you survived -- it matters _that_ you survived. You are meant for something. You are _meant_ to be in control. That’s just the way of the world.”

“The way of the world,” she repeats, then takes a steadying breath, as though trying to take this mantra in through her lungs. “So you _do_ believe in a higher power.”

Kaidan withdraws his hands, feeling the usefulness of the gesture has passed. “I guess so, yeah,” he agrees, “if you want to see it that way. Cosmic balance.”

“Cosmic balance. Destiny?”

“Maybe.”

When Shepard takes a drink, her hands are nearly steady. “I’m tired,” she says, then amends, shaking her head, “I’m _exhausted_.”

“I don’t blame you,” Kaidan says softly. “Try getting some actual _rest_. See if that helps?”

“Can’t rest, Kaidan,” she says. She waves her drink vaguely in the air. “Got a destiny to fulfill.”

“Well, no, don’t use that perspective to be hard on yourself. You can only do what you can in the hours you have available.”

“It’s not enough.”

“It has to be,” he counters immediately, and means it.

She looks at him, then, her head snapping to him suddenly as though he’s finally said something affecting. “It has to be enough,” she repeats, as though astonished, and downs the rest of her drink in one. “I guess it does.” Shepard mulls this over with a shake of the head, then reaches again for the bottle. 

In the minute it takes her to screw off its lid, pour herself another glass, and put it on the ground again, Kaidan has bitten back a thousand declarations and settles on the only one the situation might call for.

“You know I really do think you’re going to beat this, right, Shepard?”

Shepard looks up at him, her brow creased with the effort of thought. “How?” she asks, incredulously, after a moment of holding his eye.

Kaidan shrugs. “I just do.”

“Kaidan. There is _no evidence--_ ”

“I don’t care.”

“The odds are--”

“Fuck the odds,” he counters politely. “You beat odds. That’s just the way of things.”

“The way of _things_.”

“Things. The universe. Cosmic balance.” He shrugs. “Pick one.”

Shepard’s shoulders are hunched with a defeat Kaidan’s only ever seen on her when she was stuck in Alliance holding, talking about the deaths she saw at the hands of the Collectors. “I don’t think I’m going to do it, Kaidan,” she says after a long while. “I just don’t -- have your belief.”

Kaidan considers this. “Then why do you do it?”

“Just in case I can get close enough. Close enough for someone else to finish the job.” She looks at him.

“Hmm.” He leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “You can quit, you know.”

“No.”

“You can.”

“No, I can’t. I’m the expert here.”

“Okay. Then maybe I’m second-best. Why not let me take over, just for a while? I outrank you, as you know -- I really _should_ be the one leading this crew, if regs are anything to go on.”

Shepard shakes her head, making a face as she swallows her brandy. “You weren’t there against the Collectors.”

“True enough, but they’re dead now. I’ve seen what Reaper tech can do. I’ve met Banshees. I know enough to lead, Shepard, you don’t have me on that one.”

“Okay -- you’re ill.”

Kaidan frowns. He’s never actually thought about his chip problems like that. “And you’re exhausted. I bet I’m functioning on more cylinders than you are right now.”

Shepard shakes her head and closes her eyes, and Kaidan realizes friendly argument is not the way to go here. “Don’t get me wrong, Shepard -- I’m not trying to talk you out of leading,” he says instead. “I don’t have your diplomacy skills. You are integral to this process in key respects. That’s why I believe in _you_ , and not Vega. That’s why I’m not actively trying to take over, even though I could if I thought you’d overextenuated. And I think that’s why you believe in you, too -- even when you’re feeling low.” Despite himself, Kaidan’s finger reaches out and pushes a loose strand of hair away from Shepard’s face. “I think you know that, even though you lost Legion today, you liberated the geth and gave two races the space they need to thrive. I dunno if you’ve noticed, but ‘species thriving’ isn’t something we’ve seen a lot of lately. That’s one of those actions that resists the Reapers so completely that it’s impossible to quantify. And _you_ did that. You did. No one else. No one else _could_ have. Regardless of whatever else happened today, you _owned_ the Reapers. You know that, don’t you? You might be tired, but you’re not blind, Commander. You know what the hell you won today.”

Shepard has doubled over, her elbows propped at her knees, both hands holding the drink in front of her. “Then why does it feel like this?” she asks him, voice straining.

“Because you’re -- because you’re you,” he says simply. “You invest yourself. All of this -- matters to you. It’s not just a job. You do the job with some kind of insane focus I try to emulate but won’t ever totally manage, and at the end of the day, the only thing you get for it is to go home and try live with your decisions. You said it to me yourself, Shepard -- you make necessary decisions, you don’t make perfect decisions. And I know I haven’t always been great at trusting your judgment, historically, but … I get it. I get it now.” 

He shakes his head, and Shepard looks at him, waiting, hearing in his voice that he’s got something more to say.

“I can’t stop thinking over why I shot Udina,” he says eventually. “It was an insane move, professionally, and in other respects morally, but it was also the only move I was gonna take. Because if you’d been in my position, Shepard, and _I_ was telling _you_ that Udina was a traitor -- you wouldn’t have hesitated to believe me.” Kaidan looks at her. “It … wasn’t a perfect decision. It’s one that’s haunted me. But it was a necessary one. And it was entirely on the basis of what I’ve learned, watching you, that enabled me to make that decision, or we’d be in a very different -- much worse -- place in the universe right now. Now I’m not saying that your decisionmaking legacy is entirely deciding who to kill -- I’m not saying that at all. It’s about choosing who gets to _live_ \-- because you showed up and gave them the option.”

Kaidan reaches out and pulls Shepard’s closest hand gently away from her glass -- interlaces his fingers with hers, in case the contact helps to get his message across. “Legion died, yeah -- but how many lives did his death save?” He shakes his head. “I see you making decisions like he did _every day_. I have been watching you make huge personal sacrifices, to ensure that as little as possible is lost so all the more folks can keep on living, for more than three years now. And yeah, okay. those decisions are imperfect. People die. You feel shitty? No doubt. But that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. That just means you have an impossible burden to carry, one that you somehow have to figure out how to carry anyway and stay whole, even when your asshole ex-boyfriend tries to make you feel like shit about it.”

A surprised breath of laughter finds its way out of Shepard’s lungs, and Kaidan smiles and squeezes her hand. “It’s not fair to you. None of this is. But you persevere anyway, against all reason. You have defied death so many times that it’s... totally ridiculous. You have these abilities no one can match. Today, you went up against a Reaper -- _singlehandedly_ \-- and you _won_.” Kaidan laughs, incredulous, before he can reel it in. “ _Christ_ , Shepard. You are -- a force. You are unstoppable. So you feel bad. By all means, Shepard, feel bad. But don’t for a second doubt yourself.” He squeezes her hand again. “There is not a goddamn thing in this universe I think you can’t do. You already do it all.”

Shepard stares at Kaidan, the fingers in his hand bracing intensely against him. Her breath is coming heavy, her chest heaving even amid a closed jaw. “Do you really believe all that?” she asks, her voice cracking into a whisper halfway through the sentence.

“Yes,” he says without hesitation, glad to be firm when she is not. “Shepard, you’re -- impossible -- and yet you _are_. _You are_. And that’s how I know you’ll do it. You’ll either kill the Reapers, or you’ll die trying -- and even then, you’ve already come back from the dead once. I feel like that bodes a lot worse for them than it does for you.”

Shepard laughs throatily, a subdued sound, as though emotion was trying to prevent it from exiting. She removes her hand from Kaidan’s grasp and sets it gently, intimately against his cheek, thumb running over his cheekbone. “I wish I had your confidence,” she murmurs.

“You have my confidence,” he says easily, earnestly, his own hand coming up to meet hers. “Absolutely.”

Kaidan wonders immediately if he has said something wrong from the shift of Shepard’s expression, from the way she removes her hand; but she only looks at him, head-on, and says, “Thank you,” with a softness so uncharacteristic from her as to almost be worrying.

He compensates for the scrutinous silence that follows by eventually reaching out for the whiskey bottle and brandishing it in her direction. “We can actually share this time,” he says. “Want some? Quality Canadian rye.”

“No,” she says, smiling. “Thanks. I’ll stick with cognac.”

“Whoa, Shepard. No need to get high-brow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says quietly, pushing him playfully aside by the shoulder. “I’m surprised Anderson hasn’t converted _you_ to cognac by now.”

“Not for lack of trying. I do like it.” He leans toward Shepard conspiratorily. “You just can’t beat some quality Canadian rye.”

“Right.” She nods her mocking agreement; and, the tension broken, they pass several pleasant minutes just watching the stars, basking in each others’ company.

“Can I ask _you_ something?” Kaidan asks quietly, when thoughts start to wedge their way into the silence.

Shepard shuts her eyes and leans slightly away, as though bracing herself for the inevitable line of questioning. “Sure,” she says, repositioning herself with a sigh.

“Why did you end it with Garrus?”

Shepard’s eyebrows shoot up. She was clearly expecting a different topic. “I… uh...” She rubs at her shoulder with an idle hand. “When we dropped him on Palaven after the Collector fight, we both agreed that we wouldn’t try and force a relationship that wasn’t meant to be. We knew I was going to turn myself in, that it’d be a long time between visits, that we may never actually meet up again... I guess I’d come to terms with the idea of parting ways. Then, when I saw him on Menae…”

“It just wasn’t there,” Kaidan finishes quietly when she trails off. “The spark.”

Shepard nods. “I’m not gonna lie to you and say we didn’t care for each other.”

Kaidan makes a hedging noise in his throat. “I think he cares currently.”

“Maybe. Maybe I do too, a little.”

“Oh. Okay? That’s … good to know, I guess.”

“But--” She pauses to shake her head incredulously. “It’s different. It’s a different thing than what you and I -- had.” She swallows, swills her drink around in her glass. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Kaidan, but seeing you again -- on Horizon, in Vancouver, on the Normandy ... every time, it was like re-opening an old wound.”

Kaidan blinks. “Being around me _wounds_ you.”

“No! Or -- well, yes--”

“Okay. This isn’t going as I expected.”

“It’s not going how I expected either,” Shepard admits, stretching the tension out of her neck. “What I’m trying to say is that I -- care for you. Still. After -- in spite of -- everything that’s happened.” She purses her lips against the embarrassed smile on her face. A smile from Shepard is rare, especially these days, and Kaidan cocks his head, delighted to be able to witness it. “You -- got two years between the Normandy’s destruction and Horizon, Kaidan, and I -- got two months. In my mind, when you got hit on Mars, it hadn’t even been a year since we last…” She looks in his direction out of the corner of her eye, but not quite at him. “Since we were together. And I guess I just never had the time I needed to really move on.”

What had Traynor said? _...feels closed off, can’t do it justice…?_

“I thought that Cerberus bot had killed you,” Shepard continues. “And when you survived… seeing you in hospital...” She shakes her head. “It wouldn’t have been fair to Garrus to pretend I was past what we had when I wasn’t. It was something we could look past when you weren’t on my crew, but since I haven’t exactly been great at keeping my feelings close to my chest since you’ve been back aboard,” she smiles sardonically, “I feel like I made the right call.”

Kaidan tries and fails to subdue his smile, just the same as he fails to get his heart rate back under control. “Well, for the record, Shepard,” he says, defaulting on sardonic wit, “I’ve actually still been completely confused about what your feelings have been since coming back aboard, for what it’s worth.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Long term, too. No idea what’s been happening with you.”

“Okay. Good. I’m glad I haven’t lost _all_ dignity.”

“Oh, yeah. No, don’t worry about that. It’s been total emotional anarchy trying to get over you. An extremely painful few years. Reopening wounds, you say? Yeah, I totally feel that. Same page.”

Shepard is smiling openly, now, her face turned bashfully to the floor. “Happy to hear it, Major,” she says, tone subdued--

\--But then she looks up, is smiling at him instead; and for the first time in years, Kaidan isn’t sure whether or not to withhold his affectionate expression.

It’s just -- why in god’s name would he bother to waste time in overthinking it _now_?

“You already know how I feel, Shepard,” he says in a low, sincere voice.

“I, uh…” She seems to bite her lip to keep from grinning. “Yeah. I know."

“You want me to tell you again?”

“I wasn’t sure if you still want…”

“Yeah, Shepard. I still want you, all right.”

“Well, good.”

“Yeah. I think so.”

Shepard looks up at him through long eyelashes. “But just as importantly, Kaidan -- maybe more so -- do you _trust_ me? After all this, are you sure--?”

But Kaidan’s nod interrupts her, as he bends his neck slowly, being sure to keep her eye so she can see the honesty in his eyes. “Shepard,” he says, slowly, “you have _all_ of my trust. I wish I could offer you more than my word, but please, rest assured--” his free hand finds hers again and grasps in reassurance --“it’s yours. All of it. Everything. It’s all yours.”

Shepard nods; swallows. “Okay,” she says, after a beat, believing him.

“Okay,” he agrees.

They hold each other’s eye and sit, motionless, for five of the longest seconds of Kaidan’s life.

Then, when he’s unable to sit still any longer, Kaidan moves to take the glass from her hand, and Shepard only watches, motionless.

“I’d like to kiss you now,” he tells her gently.

Shepard blinks repeatedly, as though the suggestion has taken her by surprise; but then, as Kaidan’s hands slide across her jaw, cupping her face on either side, his thumbs resting just short of her ears, she manages a brief, relieved nod.

And in the next second, Kaidan has slotted his lips over hers -- and their breath stills instantly between them, as though to freeze the moment in place.

Shepard’s hands have bunched in the front of Kaidan’s t-shirt, as though unsure of where else to go. But when the second unfreezes, when Kaidan moves his lips against hers, the tension in her seems to dissolve in a single breath, and her hands move to grasp at his forearms, as though to prevent him from pulling away.

Kaidan suddenly feels the most buzzed he’s ever been.

Shepard’s lips are -- warm. They are soft, and chapped, and they feel like Shepard; and as they move, and soften, and bend to invite him in, she _tastes_ like Shepard, too, with brandy on her tongue. The slightest of motions, the gentility with which she traces the line of his lips, with _her_ lips, with her tongue -- each second of contact goes straight to his groin, and to his head at once, and god, _god_ , nothing he’s imagined has come close to this moment.

Yet in some distant recess of his mind -- maybe the only place left that isn’t consumed by the fact of Shepard’s lips against his -- he registers that she’s started shaking. Her mouth stays steady as ever, but her arms quake, her neck shivering under his fingertips; and so he shifts, forces himself to calm -- presses his forehead against hers, pulls his lips back.

“Are you okay?” he asks, deep in his throat, unwilling to open his eyes.

“Yeah,” Shepard whispers. “It’s just … I fought a Reaper today.”

“Yeah.” Kaidan nods to the extent that he can without breaking contact with her forehead. “That’s pretty unbelievable.”

“It was … really stupid.”

“ _Really_ stupid. What’s that about?”

“Had to be someone.”

“Couldn’t have been someone more expendable?”

Shepard’s form stiffens, and he knows immediately he has said the wrong thing.

“I meant me,” he clarifies, leaning back just enough to meet her eye, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“No,” she mutters. “I need you.”

He blinks, at this. “Do you?”

Shepard gives a ghost of a smile, presses her hand against his where it rests against her face; and then steps off the bench, moves around him, straddles his hips, pulls her knees snug along his legs. “Yeah,” she mutters, leaning herself along the line of his body.

“Oh,” he says, suddenly understanding completely. One hand slides beneath her, pulling her closer; the other hand moves lazily, starts to undress her with some magnificent will of self-restraint. “Okay. Well,” he mumbles, pausing to kiss her, to hold her against him, to feel her hips move over his, “please don’t fight a Reaper by yourself again, anyway.”

“I don’t take your orders,” she reminds him breathily. She is fumbling with the clasp on his pants, in a manner much less polished than what he is managing, and the effort, her need, is _so much._

Kaidan gives up on conversation and buries his face in the crook of Shepard’s shoulder, giving himself a moment just to breathe her in, to try and manage his arousal, to press his lips against her neck. His hand finds its way under her shirt and presses against her flank, his hand wrapping around her hip to feel hot skin, hard muscle, move beneath it. Her hair smells like something full of life, aloe, and, god, it’s the best scent he’s ever experienced-- 

\--she is, she _feels_ \--

Shepard’s hand buries itself firmly in his hair as he kisses along the line of her collarbone and thinks about all that she feels. He brings one hand up to remove her shirt, the other bracing against her back to keep her close even as she leans back; and Shepard abandons all attempts to keep motor control when they come back together, instead wraps herself around him, her breathing laboured, holding on as though her life depended on the dedication of his mouth against her skin.

Kaidan’s finger loops under the strap of her bra and lifts it off her shoulder, allowing his lips to trail lower, back to centre, along her collarbone. The hand at Shepard’s back shifts, and she leans back into it, fingers gripping at his hair as he presses kisses against her neck, her sternum, against the topmost swell of her breast. He deepens his breath, tries to take in as much of Shepard as he can; her hands card through his hair with unconcealed desperation, as though she can barely handle the pace he’s setting and yet is just as unwilling as he is to spend less time like this, entangled with one another.

And he is nothing if not thorough. He sets to work setting gentle kisses along the hem of her bra, his lips barely touching her skin, tracing one impossibly light finger after his mouth for as long as Shepard can take it. He relishes the way he can feel the heat of her, on his lap, even through the fabric of her pants. She cannot keep still, her thighs quake, she is resplendent like this, and so he takes his time, applies gentle suction, his finger dipping once, twice, beneath the fabric, weaving closer and closer to sensitive skin, until--

“For the love of god, Kaidan,” she hisses from above him; and with both fists bunched furiously in his hair, she wrenches his head back and kisses him with enough ferocity to knock the breath out of him.

When he’s able, Kaidan breathes in, and it takes the form of laughter, gentle, incredulous, the full scope of his feelings for her blossoming freely in his chest and on display. He feels uninhibited for the first time in what feels like years. He allows himself just a moment of indulgence, then, burying his face in her breasts, breathing deeply, living in this moment -- but then, suddenly, his hand moves beneath her, sweeps her off from overtop of him, and -- kissing her renewed, swallowing her gasp -- he sets her on her back.

His control has acquired her edge of abandon, now, and Kaidan leans himself flush against her, kisses her with all he can offer -- holds her hips to the bench, and unwinds her this way. Shepard has remembered her hands; they move, rest against his neck, his jaw. One arm hooks around his neck, and she curves her back beneath him, reaching to unclasp her bra with remarkable efficiency. Kaidan’s hands move immediately to stretch her arms high on the bench above her, the pads of his fingers tracing the outline of her form, skating across her skin, until they find their way around the curve of her breasts. He holds their weight in his palms, teases at her nipples with the lightest of touches -- and kisses her neck, her shoulders, until at last he lifts the bra over her arms and onto the floor.

Kaidan’s hands linger, then, grab gently onto Shepard’s arms. He pulls his fingers slowly down, following the contours of her forearms, palms brushing against her elbows, the lines of her muscles traced and taken in.

“Shepard,” he says, just to hear her name. His hands loop around her shoulders, brush against her back, then find their way back to her breasts, his eyes following, resting on every place he touches. He flicks his gaze back up to Shepard when he thinks he’s figured out the way she looks, after three years; and he watches her face, again grants himself the luxury of time, as he waits for her eyelids to flicker when he presses each of her nipples gently against his hands with his thumbs.

“Are you trying to drive me insane,” Shepard breathes, when her eyes have opened again -- though from the way her arms are still raised in surrender above her head, Kaidan suspects she doesn’t mind his methods at all.

“No way, Shepard,” he tells her fondly, hands resting at her ribs, her waist, her hips. 

“Well,” she says, her arms suddenly arcing high and tugging his t-shirt easily over his head, “either way, you’re wearing too much.”

Kaidan laughs, replaces his hands against her jaw, and kisses her as before, re-adjusting himself over her until he can reach down and fiddle at the clasp of her pants. It’s _Shepard’s_ hands, now, that skate along _his_ skin, as though finally relieved to be allowed to touch him. She seems to relish in learning the cut of his shoulders, his chest, his back, her motions only stuttering when he lifts her hips with an arm around her back, the other hand tugging at her pants.

“Mmm,” Shepard says, when he leans back; and Kaidan laughs, again, still distantly disbelieving that this is really happening.

“Not bad, right?” he says, easing her pants free of her hips.

“Not bad,” Shepard agrees, lifting one leg and then the other to help him along; and when she is free of them, she sits up to meet him, one hand sliding over the back of his neck while the other fusses with his pants in turn.

“Kaidan,” she murmurs, and pulls him closer with her fingers sliding into his hair. “Will you--” 

But then she stops when her hand does what it set out to do -- reaches inside the now-open flap of his pants, finds his erection, wraps around the length of him.

Kaidan makes a noise in the back of his throat, his eyes fluttering closed.

“Not if you keep that up,” he tells her, gently removing her hand. “Let me take care of you, first.”

Kaidan leans her back again, kissing her, some slow and deep thing. Her hands skate over him until they don’t -- are forced to still against him for the effort he’s putting in at taking her apart. It is only then, with Shepard’s breath stuttering for the depth of her desire, that his hand travels between them, follows along the centre of her body -- between her breasts, past her navel -- two fingers skimming over skin as though drawing a line.

His middle finger snags on her clit -- presses one slow, small circle, and then another, and Kaidan pulls back, then, to watch her. Shepard tenses, rocks her hips against him, tilts her head back in abandon. He moves lower, just enough to slip his finger barely between her folds -- finds that place of slick and heat, and stays a moment, before sliding back up again.

“But in good time, Shepard, yes,” he promises, his finger setting the barest of pressures against her clit once more, “I’ll give you everything.”

The noise in Shepard’s throat is something guttural as he sets to bringing her to the edge, and Kaidan takes pleasure in every second. Her hands against him grasp tighter, his own fingers tangled gently in her hair; and Shepard grinds against him with every touch he offers, gentle sounds of need escaping from her throat.

Kaidan dips lower again when Shepard’s frustration reaches a certain point -- tests against her for entry, then slowly, slowly delves into her to the first knuckle. He pulls out of her again, then in, then out, makes her _feel every inch_ when he pushes back in; and here he _stays_ , his finger hooking to rest against her, trusting by the shudder in her back and the way she covers her eyes with one hand that he’s found what he was looking for. 

His thumb drags up the line of her sex when he’s buried in her like this; he rests it against her clit, and waits.

“Open your eyes, Shepard,” Kaidan implores quietly. 

When she removes her hand and sets it high over her head, looking at Kaidan with those eyes, pupils blown, more need in her than he’s ever seen -- _then_ Kaidan moves again, his thumb grazing lightly against her clit, fucking her with a slow, deliberate pace until every inch of her is left rocking, _vibrating_ , keening for more -- except for her gaze, which stays steadily locked with his.

“I will give you everything,” he tells her again, and slides a second finger into her with the same careful dedication.

And then he makes good.

  


  


Shepard has always taken Kaidan whole -- _that_ much he remembers -- but time has washed some of the smaller details from memory. 

He’d forgotten the way Shepard never cries out, instead preferring to swallow her gasps and moans, as though they’ll spurn her desire if she keeps them in. He’d forgotten about how Shepard knows the exact amount of time to bury her heels in his back when he’s buried in her to the hilt, staying him, until he can’t stand to be still anymore.

He’d forgotten the way, when she comes, that the arch of her back sustains for as long as possible to encourage him against the angle she needs. He’d forgotten how the strength of her core engages, drawing out the way she closes around him, again, and again, and again--

\--the way it’s so hard to hold on for long after she takes him in like that--

\--the way her fingers brush against his hairline when he finds his completion, when he buries his head against her, when he mutters helplessly, _Shepard_ and _Shepard_ and _Shepard_ , until her touch is the first thing he knows upon return to the real world.

But there are things that are brand new, too.

Shepard is … largely the same; that bears stressing. Her bones don’t crack the way most people’s do; her joints extend in a certain way that takes some getting used to. It’s as though the synthetics have allowed her to become more elastic in a very literal sense. That … is definitely not the same. He’d have remembered this. That, he’s certain of.

If he doesn’t think too hard about it, he forgets any part of her has been artificially rebuilt. But there are benefits, too, to these changes, so he tries to stay mindful. Complaints about sore hips disappear, for example, and with some warming up, he finds Shepard is able to bend in fascinating and totally fucking devastating ways. Doors are newly open. In respects, Kaidan is thankful.

Shepard claims that he is _not_ the same, however, “cosmetic components aside.” Yet Kaidan insists that apart from “those components of skill and strength you are falsely believing as purely cosmetic,” the only difference she’s noticing is that he’s just not in a position to take their situation for granted anymore.

And given that Shepard remains more elusive than he’d like, he thinks this explanation probably sticks. It’s hard to get her alone; he spends a lot of time chasing her down, matching her odd businesslike tone in an effort not to distract her from the things that she rightfully needs to get done. Defying expectations, she’s not actually more available to him after they finally _get re-acquainted_ in the observation bay -- at least, not until she’s already in his arms and he’s stripping away her burdens: her armour; her memories; her uniform; her responsibilities.

Then -- the way she molds herself against the line of his body, the way her hips snap to his within seconds of their lips meeting -- …well, yeah. There’s nothing wrong there. In these moments -- sure. Kaidan has no doubts.

But when a week at a time goes by and she barely gives him a second glance? That’s one of those things that’s _different_ this time around, and that’s when he starts to overthink again.

He had told her -- or himself ... or maybe just Traynor -- that he would have happily served as a fuckbuddy if that’s what she needed. Savior of the universe needs release? _Sign him up._ He loves Shepard, after all. He meant it when he said he’d give her everything (alternately: anything).

He just wishes it was all a bit more above-board.

And there is, as he is faced with at the beginning and end of every day when things get fuzzy, also the fact of their mortality that may be weighing them down. Kaidan has made peace with dying -- did so long ago. He’d rather not, of course, die; but from the moment he’d set foot back on Shepard’s ship after Mars, he’d very consciously signed up for what may have been his demise. 

If he’s gonna go, he’d reasoned, he wants to go by Shepard’s side. 

And that’s no less true now. It’s just that it’s also boner-killer to think about. 

He wouldn’t mind, at time of said demise, knowing whether or not he was just a warm body or an actual meaningful relationship to Shepard. That’s all. He doesn’t think it’s a lot to ask, but he does think it’s a bit of a stretch to bring up when Thessia is falling; when Cerberus is owning them at every turn. He realizes what a lucky position he’s in, regardless of the circumstance. It would be absurd for him to complain; Allison’s very brief return message of eighteen exclamation marks followed by _Does that mean you’re going to stop whining now?_ had pointed this out well enough. So he doesn’t say a word.

His facial expressions, however, remain less easy to subdue.

Horrifically, it’s Garrus who notices his wince when he goes to ask Shepard a question before they’re about to dock on the Citadel. “Not now, Kaidan,” she replies distractedly, barely even glancing at him; and before he can put his poker face on, Garrus has already looked up at him from his rifle kit and then away again, shaking his head.

Kaidan swallows his concern and turns to go before Garrus clears his throat, catching his attention. “Don’t take it personal,” says Garrus, tone begrudging, one eye on the shuttle Shepard’s just disappeared into.

Kaidan raises an eyebrow and turns slowly back. “Not sure what you mean,” he deadpans.

Garrus, though trying to do Kaidan a kindness, nevertheless allows himself an eye-roll. “I mean, Alenko, that maybe she’s not engaging with you as much as you’d like. Maybe you’re a little confused; feeling a little hurt. But then, when you get her alone, maybe she’s herself again -- so you think you must be crazy. Just guessing.”

Kaidan clenches his jaw and says nothing.

“Things are different since she came back,” Garrus continues. “Nothing in the day-to-day you can clearly identify, but she operates differently now. Decisions she wouldn’t have made three years ago, today she can make in a heartbeat. She used to invest emotionally in her work in a way that you could see then and there, but she works with some level of removal now. She pushed a guy out a top-storey window once just because he was annoying her. I’d have done the same, but you wouldn’t have. That’s how she’s different.” Garrus shrugs. “It’s not you. And it’s not a bad thing. But stop making that face like she just kicked a puppy every time she looks at you all-business, because it doesn’t mean she’s not invested in you. She’s barely here when she’s at work, but it’s all compartmentalization. That means she’s all the more present when you get her at the right moment. It’s not that she cares less; it’s just that she bottles it up. Be thankful for what you do get with her and stop worrying about what you don’t. That’s my advice.”

And with that, Garrus returns to his rifle kit as though he’d never broken focus. 

Kaidan watches him a minute, processing his words, feeling faintly bewildered that Garrus bothered to explain any of that to him. “Thanks,” he says eventually; and from the way Garrus looks up at him and nods, he thinks Garrus knows he meant it.

“Are we good now?” Kaidan asks after another few seconds pass, despite feeling distinctly as though he’s pushing his luck.

Garrus’s mandibles click. He doesn’t look up. “You make her happy? Then we’re fine.”

“I can handle that,” says Kaidan.

From then on, he’s able to find that sense of greater security he’s looking for.

It helps that every time they do find one of those rare moments, she is certainly present. It’s hard to argue with her body language, anyway, after she beckons him into the lift and hits Deck 1. So Kaidan learns to relax, to give her the space she needs to work, and starts actively seeking out those rare moments when he can actually catch her alone instead of trying to carve out attention for himself in the middle of crises to take _her_ up to Deck 1 from time to time.

It’s still uncertain. And that still drives him crazy. But living with uncertainty is part of being with Shepard. He gets that. He gets it.

He does.

  


  


When he’s struggling with it like this, Kaidan can sometimes forget the uncertainty also works in his favour.

He gets on the lift, once, after a week of almost no contact with Shepard whatsoever. He’s just run requisitions for Shepard, now that she’s too busy to meet with Cortez. That’s fine -- Kaidan’s all too happy to take on more responsibility. He is the ranking officer, after all, and work keeps him busy. 

Besides: he realizes, if selfishly, that taking over responsibilities from Shepard might mean that Shepard has more time to, you know, _relax_ , and that can only be a win for everyone. Right now, with Thessia having fallen, she’s barely had time to eat.

He is pleasantly surprised, then, when the lift slows to a stop on Deck 3, and Shepard, by herself, wanders inside.

“Hi,” he says, blinking up from his PDA as though waking from a dream.

“Hi,” she replies. She stands beside him in the lift, hands clasped behind her back, facing the door as it shutters to a close.

Then, when the lift has barely left the deck, Kaidan finds himself pinned to the wall while Shepard reaches over and flips the kill switch.

“Hi,” he says again, bewildered, cheeks suddenly burning hot.

“Hi,” she replies, smiling, crowding his space. “I’ve been thinking about you today.”

“Oh?” he croaks, his throat suddenly parched; and then she is kissing him, wholly, devastatingly, diverting all his attention to the points of contact against his skin. Her lips are hot on his, her hands clenching in his hair, her waist bending when his hands rest in the small of her back, she is muttering in his ear, "I miss you," and Kaidan--

\--is grasping at air.

Just as quickly as she was upon him, Shepard is gone. The switch for the lift has been switched back on before he’s registered it’s happened, and Shepard is tucking her hair delicately back into her bun, tugging on her shirt as though to clear it of wrinkles.

Kaidan is still holding his arms dumbly at Shepard-waistlevel when the lift doors open on Deck 2.

Traynor, unfortunately, is standing there, evidently also waiting for the lift. Judging by the look on her face as she looks from Kaidan to Shepard to the PDA abandoned on the floor, it takes her approximately half of one second to figure out what she just walked in on.

“Oh,” she says in way of greeting.

“Traynor,” Shepard replies easily, smirking wildly, flush obvious on her cheeks; then, in some unparalleled act of bravado, she _actually_ tries to leave the lift without so much as a second glance at Kaidan.

“Nope!” Kaidan says loudly, finding his action centre just in time to grab Shepard by the wrist. “Sorry, Traynor,” he manages, distinctly aware how disheveled he must look when Traynor actually takes an alarmed step away from him. “Take the next one.”

Shepard laughs openly when he pulls her gently back within; and she lets him hit the button for her quarters before pushing him deeper into the lift by his shirt, crowding him back into its corner before the doors have even closed. Traynor’s muffled incredulity is audible even as the lift starts again into action, but Shepard doesn’t seem to care at all that she’s just made a scene.

“You’re not getting away that easy,” he tells her between the kind of open, sloppy, consuming kisses that keep him awake when he’s without her, pretending he has the slightest bit of control over this situation.

“You’re such an easy mark, Alenko,” says Shepard.

“When it comes to you? Proudly.” He steps behind her, working his arms around her chest and stomach, and they step forward in unison, with Kaidan’s lips on her neck.

Shepard makes those gentle noises of assent, the ones that stay in her throat and never quite break, at the same time that she punches in her access code. “God, I need this,” she tells him as they stagger into her quarters.

“You do,” he agrees, spinning her around, walking her backward. “You need _more_ of this.” He leans her against the edge of her desk and presses his lips just behind her ear. “I’m not trying to be needy, Shepard,” he mutters in a low voice, lifting her onto its surface; “it’s just common knowledge that it’s better to save the universe well-sexed.”

“Or to at least face death satisfied,” she mutters, hooking her legs around his with some tone of wanton agreement.

But this brings Kaidan to stand up straight and look her in the eye, concern creasing his brow. “You’ll live, Shepard,” he reminds her, stopping everything to hold her face carefully in both hands. “You’re gonna survive this. We’ve discussed this before. You may as well face up to it now; I mean it. You’re gonna _win_. It’s the way of the world.”

Shepard’s characteristic deafening silence follows, her form tensing, her fingers frozen at his waist. “Don’t paint me up, Kaidan,” she says, gentle command returning to her tone. “I’m not a miracle worker. You know that.”

“You _are_ , Shepard,” he says, and he leans into her again, presses the words into her skin -- brands them in place, with his lips on her eyelids, her temple, her lips, her jaw. “As far as I’m concerned, you are. You are. You will beat this. I believe in you.”

Even if she doesn’t believe him then, she does, at least, allow him to pull her shirt over her head; allow herself to lean into him when he mutters the words again, "I believe in you," against her neck, her shoulder, her stomach, her hip. She finds it in her to relax, to breathe, to take in everything he wishes to impart upon her, as he strips her of her uniform. She hooks one arm around his neck as he slides off her pants; she lets him lift her clean off the desk, wraps her legs around him, and kisses him back as he takes her to the bed.

Then she lets him press his beliefs into a thousand different places on her skin as he lays her down, lets him articulate the words by way of his tongue against her sex -- and he keeps offering them to her, just in case she finds a way to take them in and _believe._

Shepard can be uncertain. He can deal with that.

Kaidan feels solid enough for the both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I like to tell jokes in the text from Kaidan’s POV. Oh, *yeah*, he’s a *paragon* of stability in the field.
> 
> [cut to: “OHHMYY FUCK WHAT IS THAT THING”  
> “that would be a banshee”  
> “IM GONNA DIE WHAT IN FUCKS NAME”]
> 
> [Commodores voice] He’s a BRICK. HOUSE.
> 
> If imagining what sort of madrigal a stoked Alenko might sing in the shower, may I suggest Thomas Weekles' 1608 classic, "Tomorrow is the Marriage Day"?


	13. Epilogue (2188)

  


  


**// H A L F M O O N   B A Y --** 2188 **//**

 

If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s surviving.

In his more objective moments, Kaidan knows: the fact that he’s here at all is pretty damned amazing. If he closes his eyes and takes a breath, he’s almost able to fathom the fact that he’s standing in front of the house he built mostly by himself (if with a little help from Vega, Cortez, and a skilled plumber who mysteriously needed no payment). 

He considers the fact that his lot on Earth was even still waiting for him when he came back, untouched by Reapers, as if to offer him some glimmer of hope for some future he might someday create for himself -- he considers that he has the capacity and the ability to stand upright in front of it, with all his faculties intact, pain-free, to breathe in the rain-soaked air -- and he knows that _all_ these things are pretty goddamned amazing.

But -- call it serendipity; call it cosmic balance; call it whatever the hell you want -- the biggest fucking miracle of all is that he’s even still alive.

You could say he’s in the habit of counting his blessings these days. They’re fleeting; soon the gratitude falls away, and not long after that he’s usually back to remembering what he lacks, even when he’s standing around the things he built out of the ruins of an apocalyptic war. So he takes the moments of thanks as they come; acknowledges them; appreciates them when they occur. 

_Gratitude._

It’s a concept he can get behind.

In the eighteen months since rock bottom, though, Kaidan’s mostly had to make a point of chasing these moments down in unnatural contexts -- sometimes to the point of driving his friends up the fucking wall. Even when he hasn’t been trying to be a nuisance on purpose, he’s still had to smile in cynical recognition every time whomever he’s been talking to gets angry or confused while he calmly practices giving thanks for the very fact of air to breathe. Truthfully -- he’s felt the same way that they have, a lot of the time. Being this hokey takes a lot of work. If he’s being honest, the trademark nihilism that’s edged at every one of his actions over the past couple years is a lot easier to fall back into. 

It’s just that he’s not willing to throw away all this fucking _effort._ Being a better person is like any other project, in that respect. Kaidan’s a lot of things, but a quitter is not one of them.

So, on the other hand, he doesn’t really care from hokey anymore. He’s survived a hell of a lot. He’s put in a shit ton of fight. That means that he’s earned this; he gets to be a person who strives for zen, to insert artificial calm into contexts that would have formerly sent him fuming away, even at the expense of his friends’ enjoyment of his company.

He’s earned the terms on which he gets to live. That, at least, he’s sure they’d agree with. And he wants to occupy a place of motherfucking gratitude -- even if it takes him a shit ton _more_ fight to get there.

Deciding not to dwell on what’s been lost means that he also gets to decide when he’s tired of his own bullshit. Today, that’s taken the form of calling himself out for peeking out his own living room window every five minutes while he’s been waiting for Allison’s shuttle, as if she’d ever leave him hanging when she’s promised to show up. So now he’s taken his sorry ass outside, to stand in his own front lawn that he sowed with his own hands, to breathe in his own patch of fresh air on his own goddamn property.

To occupy a place of gratitude.

To get a little … _perspective._

It’s part of his new lease on life. _Perspective._ You choose what outlook to gird. All you have to do is find a solid place to stand; put your hands on your hips; open your lungs; breathe in--

 _Way too lucky to be here._

And breathe out. 

Breathe in-- _be thankful for what you’ve got_ \-- breathe out. 

Breathe in-- _stop dwelling on what you can’t change --_ breathe out. 

Breathe in--

_Shepard’s still not here._

\-- hold --

_You might never be as strong as you were._

\-- hold --

_You can’t even do this right, Kaidan, you ungrateful bastard._

Kaidan lets his breath out, angrily, in one hurried stream.

So, yeah. It still takes him effort from time to time. But since he gets to choose which outlook to gird, Kaidan chooses to believe that he at least gets points for fucking trying.

He shakes his head and shuts his eyes, breathes in again, with his hands shoved in his pockets. He tries to listen to the seagulls in conversation with the crows; he starts listing off the things he’s managed to piece together for himself since the surgery; and he manages to get there, to that elusive place of gratitude, with the gentility of a day without struggle washing over him in steadily increasing waves--

\--until a clapped hand on his shoulder wrenches him out again with a terrified start.

He whips around to see Allison’s face grinning back at him. “Jesus,” he mutters. “Warn a guy, next time, would you?”

“You didn’t hear me drive up?” She hitches a thumb over her shoulder at the rented shuttle and throws her arm around his neck. “Not my problem, there, Ghandi. Here, I got you a housewarming present.”

“A … cactus.” He takes the tiny pot from her and holds it aloft, as though to assess it for pranking capability.

“It’s _just a cactus,_ Kay. Figured longevity was critical for a house you’re only at less than half the time.”

Kaidan regards it with great care. Maybe it’s the moment of gratitude he’s only just exited from, but he feels strangely overcome. “Thank you, Allison,” he says eventually, his emotion audibly flooding his tone.

Allison, by now used to his histrionics, rolls her eyes as she allows herself to be pulled into another hug. “Still welling up at the drop of a hat, I see.”

“Yeah. I really thought at least part of that was the malfunctioning chip.”

“Peaches, I think that’s just who you are.”

“Well, the more you know.” 

Allison is staring up at the house, and Kaidan smiles and joins her. “It’s nice,” she tells him.

“That’s what you have to say?” he says, blinking at her. “Eighteen months in the making and all you have to say is, ‘it’s nice’?”

“Oh boy. Fine: it is _deeply_ beautiful, Kaidan. Contests shall it win. Truly, a paragon of houses.”

“Thank you. I agree.” Kaidan smiles wistfully. “I’m thinking of calling it ‘Shepard’s House.’”

Allison only covers her face with a hand and takes one of those deep, calming breaths for herself.

“I think it’s fitting,” comes a voice from behind him. 

Kaidan shoots a glance over his shoulder and grins widely. “Thanks, Sam.”

“No problem.” Traynor snatches the cactus from out of his hand and backs up toward the house. “Now let’s stop staring at this thing and go _in_ , before the rain drowns us all.”

“These aren’t rain clouds,” Kaidan says distantly, unwilling to be roused from his reverence for the moment.

Traynor makes a noise in her throat and looks to Allison for support, but if Samantha’s subsequent eye-roll is any indication, Allison has only shaken her head. Traynor accordingly slouches back across the lawn toward Kaidan and slams the cactus back into his waiting hand.

“Thank you,” he says as she passes, staring ever onward at his new home’s cedar frame.

“Sure,” Traynor says; then, without missing a beat, she scoops Allison into her arms and initiates a public display of affection so intense that Kaidan thinks it might actually warrant an adult rating.

“Oh my god,” Kaidan says, and shields them from his vision with one hand. “Fine, I get it, let’s go inside.”

“Excellent,” Traynor grins; and, knowing victory, she retreats from Allison, a prim finger clearing any mess from her lip.

“I see how it is,” gripes Allison. “I’m just a tool for you to get what you want.”

“Hardly, darling. _He’s_ the one with the beach house.”

“Let’s not paint it up,” Allison says. “It’s on the sodden coast, not the Mediterranean.”

“It briefly gets above twenty-five degrees for a day or two in July,” Kaidan says, turning toward trunk of their shuttle. “It _could_ be a beach house.”

“Keep dreaming,” Allison calls after him as he passes.

“That’s the plan,” he mutters; and while Allison and Traynor hang back to admire a particularly majestic tree, Kaidan takes it upon himself to pop the hatch of the shuttle ... and use its door as a shield. 

He takes a second -- leans against the shuttle’s frame, grips his hands to the top of the door, watches as his knuckles tense white -- and _breathes._

He’s not entirely sure he’s ready for this.

It’s not that he isn’t glad for the company, He did invite them; he’s certainly glad they’re here. Spending full days of “vacation” entirely on his own has had mixed results, and he definitely has the impression it would’ve gotten old very quickly if he hadn’t made these plans. But their having _gotten_ here, now, after Kaidan’s spent a week in the house on his own getting accustomed to its creaks and quirks and solitude, he’s beginning to regret not having given himself at least a _bit_ more time.

It isn’t fair to them. It’s not remotely the same thing. But seeing them here, looking at either one of them, hearing their voices -- all he manages to do is to dwell on what … _isn’t._

_Shepard’s still not here._

Kaidan pushes off from the frame of the shuttle and runs a hand through his hair. Forcing the thought from his mind, with a shake of his head and a breath of annoyance, he reaches for the bag closest to him-- 

\--and, unexpectedly, his skin courses with biotics.

He clutches his hand to his chest, biting off a short string of profanities. It’s not like anything hurts; it’s just that when he activates automatically, as though his body has thoughts of its own, he’s always terrified of sending an impulse somewhere it’s not supposed to go -- coursing around the frame of the car, toward another person, somehow hitting himself. 

_You might never be as strong as you were._

Kaidan kicks at the shuttle, as though it was somehow responsible, and then stills himself with stubborn rigidity. He shuts his eyes and takes a breath, trying to re-locate his locus for calm; and when he opens them again, he finds that Allison has predictably turned up by his side.

“Still having biotics trouble?” she asks, face etched with concern.

“Yeah.” He waves a dismissive hand and squares his shoulders, looking determinedly back into the shuttle. “This L3 shit is still way too responsive. I make one reaching gesture and…” He takes a steeling breath and reaches out his non-dominant arm, twisting his body in some bizarre contortion, as he tries again to pick up the luggage by hand.

He’s grateful Allison has foregone mockery, for once; instead, she seems to experience a rare moment of speechlessness as she watches him. “You _are_ making progress?” she asks upon his eventual success in lifting the bag bodily toward him, knowing better than to offer to do it for him.

“Something like it.” He grimaces as he lifts the duffel over his shoulder. “It’s an uphill battle. I feel like a kid again a lot of the time. Can’t do anything half as well as I want to, constantly aroused, no stamina, going off at a moment’s notice…”

“New analogy, please,” she says, wrinkling her nose.

“I feel like I’m endangering everyone around me all the time,” he finishes, ignoring her. “Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve…”

He trails off, realizing too late that Allison is gonna kill him for even bringing it up; and, as expected, he turns his head to find her besetting him with an expression of unmasked incredulity. 

“Uh -- remind me again, pal, just _how_ dead would you be right now if you hadn’t gotten the chip replaced?” she asks angrily.

“Pretty dead,” he admits, “but as you’ll recall, I’d kind of accepted that by the time I went under the knife.”

She scowls at him. “Regardless: better weak than dead.”

“Speak for yourself,” he mutters.

Allison’s jaw drops. “ _Kaidan._ ” She bats at his arm with an open hand. “I wish you wouldn’t joke like that. What’s wrong with you?”

“Where’s the joke? Just because I chose ‘very dangerous, possibly fatal surgery’ over ‘slow and painful deterioration’ doesn’t mean I necessarily dodged a bullet--”

“Stop, Kaidan. Just stop.” Allison pulls at his arms and forces him to face her head-on. “Listen to me. Are you in pain?”

“Not generally,” he admits begrudgingly.

“Are you alive?”

“Physically, sure. _Spiritually,_ on the other hand--”

She shushes him furiously. “Are you even happy to fucking be here? And don’t you dare give me a bullshit answer to that one, Kaidan, I swear to god.”

Kaidan sighs and softens his expression, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Yes, Allison. I promise. I’m happy to fucking be here.”

She clucks her tongue and shrugs his hands off her, elbowing him out of the way, reaching to pull the other bag out of the trunk. “Well, you’re not amusing anyone with this bullshit,” she informs him firmly, “so you can just put it away. You’re not L2 anymore -- I get it. Is that annoying? Sure. But you _survived_ the _Reaper War_ , Captain Cynicism, so your job is to shut the fuck up about the _alleged_ bullet that’s out for you and learn some fucking _gratitude_. Too many people died for you to spout off like this.”

Kaidan feels his stomach drop familiarly as she peels away from him and ambles up the driveway, lugging the bag furiously over her shoulder; and after a forlorn peer inside the shuttle to see if anything’s lying forgotten, he slams the door shut and hurries after her, duffel bag in tow.

“You’re right,” he calls as she walks into the house via the porch.

“I know,” she returns over her shoulder; but, already, most of the venom has somehow found its way out of her tone.

“What’s he said now?” floats Traynor’s voice from inside. She has apparently been in the kitchen for some minutes already and is snacking, Kaidan remarks upon entry, on something she’s scavenged from within its depths.

“Being weak in biotics is worse than being dead,” Allison replies shortly, dropping the bag unceremoniously onto the floor.

“Christ,” says Traynor around a mouthful of cashews. “Says what he thinks about us normal folk, doesn’t it?”

“That’s not what I said,” he protests weakly.

“Imagine the conversations he must have had with Shepard.” Allison lowers her voice into a poor imitation of Kaidan’s. “‘Sure, you might save the _universe_ , but can you float a man off a rooftop? Who’s the real hero here?’”

“It astounds me how people still reach for Shepard when they’re trying to bring me down a peg.” Kaidan slides the door shut behind him. “Really, it’s wounding. I care about at _least_ one other thing.”

Traynor closes her lips around the neck of a beer and smirks. “Nice place, Alenko,” she says when she resurfaces, apparently recognizing the need for a lighter tone.

“Thanks!” he says brightly, all too cheerful for the chance to change the subject. “I think so. I see you’ve wasted no time in making yourself at home.”

“You said it yourself: mi casa es su casa...”

Kaidan frowns and thinks back. “What -- when we were disembarking from the Normandy? A year and a half ago?” He nods shortly. “You’re right, Traynor. That blanket statement _totally_ applies to this specific situation.”

Traynor looks up with dawning concern. “Is that not what you meant? No, come on. That’s _totally_ what you meant.”

“Don’t mind me,” Allison says with false levity. “I’ll just put the bags in the bedroom while you two reminisce, shall I?”

“Oh, would you?” Traynor responds sincerely, pulling out one drawer after another in flagrant nosiness; and though Allison rolls her eyes, she tugs the bag out from Kaidan’s grip and disappears around the corner with them both.

Traynor immediately drops her focus from Kaidan’s kitchen and cranes her neck to make sure Allison’s properly disappeared down the hallway. Kaidan, bewildered, watches as Traynor approaches him with a barely withheld expression of mischief.

“Allison said this was a no-work trip,” she says, voice low in her throat.

Kaidan knows at once what this is about. “Show me,” he says immediately; and they lean naturally against the counter, shoulders flush, as Traynor pulls a PDA from her waistband.

“I tracked those communications signatures from Shepard’s tribunal records, like you asked,” she begins. “The files salvaged from the Normandy’s time as a Cerberus vessel were particularly enlightening. You can see here, there’s supposed to be a tracking signature attached to this tip that brought Cerberus to find Shepard’s body -- but, look, when I select the signal’s properties menu…” Traynor taps on the external-link attachment and is met with a clearance block. “Locked out.”

Kaidan hums and takes the PDA from her. The block looks like an Alliance clearance screen, but upon tapping in his authorization code, he finds that he, too, is locked out -- even as a Spectre.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Traynor mutters. “I’m willing to bet that _everyone,_ even the highest Admiral, would be locked out if they tried to input their clearance. I don’t think it’s really an Alliance block -- it’s more likely external, made to imitate an Alliance screen. So then I thought, maybe it’s Cerberus’ block; but why would Cerberus block anyone from learning the origin of a tip _to Cerberus_ , and why would they bother pretending to be the Alliance? So I dug deeper.”

Sam takes the PDA back and rearranges some files on the display, while Kaidan blinks with the effort of keeping up with what she’s doing. Communications, it seems, is not tech. “After some finagling,” Traynor continues, “I was able to track the signature of the _block’s_ transmission at least far enough to figure out that the tip about Shepard’s body most likely reached Cerberus through an information broker. They’re the only ones who’d bother going to these lengths to cache the signal to this degree. Are you following me?”

“Mostly,” he mutters. “You weren’t able to narrow the signal down further than that, huh?”

“Not quite; once I’d bothered to make one deduction, though, I started to give myself permission to make more connections based more on likelihood and instinct than evidence. I should reiterate that nothing I’m about to tell you can be really confirmed in any way, but…” Traynor pulls up a bunch of new files that Kaidan recognizes easily -- his own reports. “What struck me as _particularly_ odd, when I started looking more seriously into reports relying on intel from unknown sources, is that _your_ reports mention a _ton_ of them, particularly in 2185. Here, look -- from your report on the origins of your biotic league; from your report on Horizon… did you ever find out who was feeding you this information, perchance?”

Something is starting to click in Kaidan’s head. “No… but it couldn’t be the same source as who alerted Cerberus to Shepard’s location … could it?”

Traynor nods curtly, eyes glistening. “That’s my theory. The Alliance at large had a few bits of info from quote-unquote ‘unknown sources,’ too -- mostly intel about the need for a Sentinel to be stationed on Horizon, for both the protection of the colony at large and for the completion of gun repairs.” She grins widely as Kaidan besets an expression of deep incredulity upon her. “So _then_ I went back to transmissions received by Cerberus in ‘85 and tried to see if the Normandy was sent to Horizon on similarly sourced intel. The Cerberus communications were more restricted for obvious reasons, but there was one message I was able to track down about Horizon that shared a proxy source pattern with the block on the message about Shepard’s body…”

Traynor taps on the screen, and a galaxy map appears -- zooms abruptly in on Illium. “That intel to Cerberus about the need to defend Horizon seems to have come from somewhere on Illium -- as, most likely, did the tip about Shepard’s body. And you know who was on Illium in 2185…?”

Sound rushes loudly in Kaidan’s ears. 

All the unexplained factors from the last five years, very suddenly, each start making perfect sense at once.

“I wasn’t sure I was right at first,” Traynor continues, her voice sounding very far away, “because it seemed _sloppy_ of her, to be honest. But between the timing of it … the fact that she wouldn’t have had the equipment to be anything more than a small-scale operation when Shepard was spaced in ‘83 but that she, much later on, would have used the same caching sequence to contact Cerberus again in ‘85…” She shakes her head. “To use the same cache signature both times would certainly have demonstrated to Cerberus who was really in control of the galaxy, that’s for sure.”

Kaidan, reeling, puts out a hand to stop her and begins pacing back and forth in the kitchen.

So the person who told Cerberus where to find Shepard so they’d rebuild her -- was the same person who told Barber everything he, Kaidan, had needed to know to track down Cerberus -- 

\--was the same person that gave Kaidan the resources and opportunity to build forces for his Spec Ops division -- 

\-- was the same person who planted information and informants so he would take the mission on Horizon and defend the planet alongside Shepard -- 

\-- who was the same person to set in motion all the events that led them to defeat the Reapers --

\-- who was probably the same fucking person who sent a plumber to root Kaidan’s house free of charge.

The Shadow Broker had done all of it.

Liara -- had done all of it.

“What is freedom?” he asks Traynor emptily, already somehow halfway through an existential crisis.

Traynor battles a wild grin and tucks the PDA away once again into her waistband. “Just a theory, remember. But I thought you’d want to know anyway.”

“Yeah.” Kaidan clears his throat and tries to focus his eyes as the squeaking of hardwood announces Allison’s return. “Thanks. Thank you.”

“I chose the brightest room,” Allison announces as she ambles back in, all vexation from their previous exchange evaporated.

“Thanks, love,” says Traynor, pulling her shirt over the PDA all too casually. She hooks an arm around Allison’s neck and presses a kiss into her forehead, as though to dissuade any assumption that they might’ve been discussing work in any capacity. “Only so much to be done in this climate, but I appreciate the effort.”

“I’m surprised you’re not spending shore leave on Horizon,” Kaidan says, blinking himself slowly back to reality.

“Allison seems to think you need coddling,” Traynor tells him. 

“That’s -- not what I said,” she insists. “I just … conveyed the invitation--”

Traynor snakes around behind her, arms dropping to Allison’s waist, and grins at Kaidan behind her back. She rests her chin in Allison’s shoulder. “Yes, in the form of, ‘please come with me, that way I can have breaks…’”

“I never said that!”

“Right. Because you love the rain _just_ as much as he does.”

“It’s -- an acquired taste, but it’s not -- _bad_ \--”

As they bicker, Kaidan wanders over to the fridge and fishes out a beer from within. He cracks it open and watches the two of them with benign interest as the topic slowly unspools; then, once their argument spins into such wider issues as to whether there had been adequate discussion of their options and whether Sam was actually bothered with the choice, he leaves them to it and retreats out to the porch, sliding the door partially shut behind him.

By now, the clouds have begun to break. The sun is setting, sending streaks of broken orange across the sky. Their reflections glare in the sea view, and Kaidan is forced to bring a hand to his brow to block out the light. _Not even a hint of a headache_ , he notices, once a few moments have passed; and he drops his hand to take advantage of his comparatively new ability to squint. 

So the surgery was, at least, good for something. 

It does him good to remember this every once in a while; sometimes he loses track of why he did it. Is daily rehab a pain in his ass? Yes. Does he wish he had his powers back? Hell, yes. But given that he’s had the incredible fortune to be that one in every ten to emerge not only wholly functional but with any capacity for biotics left intact at all, things could be one hell of a lot worse. 

No doubt about it -- he’s a survivor. One lucky bastard if there ever was one. 

Still … he’s never gotten over the sneaking fear that he’ll never be able to rival his former self when he does finally get a grasp on his biotics again. That bothers him.

It bothers him a _lot_.

He’s his own worst enemy; this much is true. He’d do better to stop thinking about it altogether and just, as he so frequently meditates on, focus on being thankful for what he _does_ have. But every time he can’t get a mass effect field to form, when he's stuck Lifting object after object with increasing ease and increasing boredom, he can’t help but think about how powerful he used to be. He can't help but realize how the unusual strength of his biotics had made him indispensable in battle; how his unparalleled skill had prevented him from being relegated to some backwater like Horizon during the war; and how it might've even been the deciding factor in letting him back aboard the Normandy, which had consequently led to his final, indispensable weeks with Shepard.

Besides all that -- despite the fact that he desperately wishes he believed anything else -- Kaidan also remains entirely confident that the only reason he’d ever been interesting to Shepard was because of the dedication he brought to mastering his skills -- skills that he now, at least in part, lacks. So it’s hard not to feel utterly impotent in their absence.

The thing was that while Shepard had this incredible skillset -- reasoning, strength, sharpshooting, diplomacy -- that had made her an excellent squad leader, even she’d known that she was strongest with engineers and biotics behind her. It had been Kaidan’s incredible fortune to be both. His diverse skillset had allowed him to almost rival her in strength and utility, and that had made him useful at worst and desired at best. He was good defensively and even better offensively, which meant he could contribute to the cause at any level and for any reason. He’d made himself tough to leave behind.

But now -- even if he remains a skilled marksman and an exceptional engineer -- he’ll always think of himself foremost as someone whose biotic skill had, _formerly_ , been unrivalled among humans.

That said, it is totally within the realm of possibility that he’ll be able to figure out how to get many of his powers back, given time. He already feels confident that he will someday cast a barrier again without accidentally throwing a car at someone. He’s more unsure if he’ll ever be able to re-learn how to Reave -- it had taken him fifteen years to get it to a point of reliable use the first time -- but if the occasional involuntary pulse in his arm is anything to go by, he's about a hair’s breadth from figuring out how to Warp again, regardless of whether the target is deserving of molecular disassembly or not.

So -- it’s a matter of time. He's a survivor. He's got luck on his side, or skill, or, at the very least, dedication.

But if Shepard had thought he might’ve been a liability in battle _before_ he'd gotten the old chip out… well. No doubt she’d bench him in a second, now.

 _If_ she was here.

He thinks a lot about what she’d think -- if she was here.

It’s funny, when he’s in the right mood to think so, that he’s here and she’s not. It’s funny because of what she’d said to her when they’d taken a moment in the London safe zone--

_“When this is over,” Shepard had said, stepping closer, looking him dead in the eye, “I’m gonna be waiting for you. You’d better show up.”_

It’s funny--

Because he _had_ shown up. He had followed her orders. He had gotten on the Normandy when she’d told him to; he had let her kiss him goodbye; he had let her walk away from him and into Reaper fire.

He had let her final words to him be:

_“No matter what happens--”_

No matter what happens.

That’s funny, because --

It was never actually an issue of _letting_ Shepard do anything. She was gonna do what she’d decided she needed to, whether he’d gotten injured or not. He hadn’t once thought about holding her back, even when the words _that’s never gonna happen_ had been leaving his lips, because he’d known better than to believe that he _could_ hold Shepard back.

The thing Kaidan thought he’d never let happen was for Shepard to walk into that beam -- _alone._

And yet.

When she’d told Kaidan to _show up_ , back in the London safe zone, he hadn’t responded. He hadn’t made any promises to her; _I owe her that much,_ he’d thought at the time. Because though she’d given him an order and he’d intended to follow it, it wasn’t on the terms she’d been thinking. He’d told her time and time again, after all, that he’d been prepared to go to the edge of hell and back -- for her, for Earth, for the cause, it didn't matter. If that had meant dying, then fine. He’d have done it, if it meant easing her burden.

So he’d intended to show the fuck up, all right -- by her side, when it had come time to arm the Crucible.

At any cost.

_No matter what happened._

So -- you know. It’s just ... funny. Or something.

He often thinks about what might’ve been different if he _had_ said something, when she’d tried to get him to promise to survive. If he’d told her that he really had intended to come out the other side, even if he hadn’t believed it -- if he’d lied and told her he’d believed there was no chance she’d die, even standing there in London as they were and seeing plainly that it could’ve been their final day--

Could she have found an extra modicum of strength? If he’d said something?

Could that have helped her come out whole on the other side?

Anyway -- the thing that’s funny, the _cosmic joke of it all,_ is that he’d kept a promise to her he’d never actually made. He’d shown up, he’d followed orders, he'd gotten onto the Normandy when that fucking car had exploded in his face. He’d done what she'd asked to a T, at great expense.

But Shepard? She’ll never--

_Probably._

She’ll _probably_ never hold up her end of the bargain, and find him.

She hadn’t promised anything, either, you see; but the other thing he remembers from London, the thing that allows him this shadow of a doubt, the thing that makes this a joke, the thing that gives him ‘probably’, is --

He had tried to recover. When he’d realized he couldn’t promise quite what she’d wanted him to, instead of saying, _We’re gonna survive this_ , but the best he had ultimately managed was, “How are you doing?” He’d asked: “Scared?” 

And Shepard had said, “Damn straight I’m scared.”

Shepard had said--

“That fear’s gonna keep me alive long enough to strike these bastards right through the heart.” 

And Kaidan had taken a breath and said, “yeah,” he’d said, “exactly” -- and emotion had risen in his chest then. His entire body was filled with terror, all at once, at the thought of losing her _again_ ; at the thought of him being the one to die instead; at the thought of only one of them enduring this battle, only to leave the other one behind -- to wait.

Because, hadn’t she said it herself? That she’d be waiting?

But it's Kaidan who's waiting for _her._

Far be it from him, after all, not to pick up where she left off.

She’d tried to get away from him, after she’d told him she’d win. She’d said, “Take care, Major,” instead of what they should have been saying all along; but he’d stopped her, unwilling to let that be the last word between them. He'd taken her then, kissed her in that _way_ , the way that stops a moment, the way that brings everything to an absolute standstill -- just in case, by some magic or by some miracle, he might have just found a way to give them more time.

“I can’t lose you again,” he’d told her, then.

And -- this is the joke. Because then he had.

It’s just -- that’s the joke, right? Isn’t it? This is the irony that makes it all funny. See -- he had said, _I can’t lose you again,_ the same way he’d promised weeks before that that he’d never leave her again, either --

And then, almost immediately, he _had_ left her. 

And the second after that, he _lost her._

So he’d shown up, in the end. He's here, isn't he? 

But he hadn't actually managed it when it had counted.

And maybe, from the way _all of this irony_ tastes hot and metallic on his tongue, it’s not actually fucking funny at all.

Kaidan braces himself against the rail of the balcony, bowing his head, trying to beat back the grief and regret from taking him over. As he’s trying to edge himself back into the present, he catches his name among the murmurs from inside.

“... going to be _fine_. Give him time.”

“ _Samantha._ ”

“He is a _grown man._ He’s been through a lot. He’ll move on in his own time.”

Allison’s laugh is hollow. “You weren’t around last time.”

“No, but I’m around _this_ time. You should’ve seen him after the Crucible detonated. He didn’t know whether Shepard was alive or dead _then_ , and he functioned just fine.”

“How functional he is in a crisis situation has no bearing on whether he thinks she might come back.”

“Well… shouldn’t he?”

“Oh, _god_! Not you too!”

“They didn’t find the body, Al. We all know how that turned out last time--”

“Samantha, I am so serious. Do not encourage him.”

“All I’m saying is that he’s working off precedent! I just talked to him a bit about Shepard while you were putting the bags away, and he seems--”

“Oh, my god, please stop that. I mean it. He _has_ to prioritize moving on.”

“I don’t agree! The more he’s exposed to his memories, the more they’ll integrate into his life…”

“Believe me, he exposes himself to memories about Shepard plenty often enough.”

Even before Allison’s stopped speaking, Kaidan’s already retreated back inside his own mind, as though to prove her right out of defiance alone.

_\--the way her hand had slipped away from his face, even as her last words had reverberated in his head--_

_\-- the way his arm had dropped to his side as he’d watched her turn away from him for the last time--_

_\--the sound of the Reaper’s beam, seconds later--_

They never found her body.

Kaidan’s one lucky fuck, sure -- but Shepard might be the only one luckier.

He looks up some minutes later to discover Allison standing on the balcony, staring at him.

“Christ,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his face in some effort to bring him back to reality. “How long have you been there?”

“Not long. You had that look on your face.” She leans against the porch’s railing beside him, squinting against the dying light of the sun. “You’re thinkin’ about her again, huh?”

Kaidan purses his lips and stares straight ahead. The ocean glistens, a rich orange in the sunset, just past the silhouette of the trees. “Do you believe in a higher power, Allison?” he asks, suddenly, instead of answering her question.

Allison’s expression suggests she might finally and irrevocably have decided he’s nuts. “No,” she says, unequivocally. “Do _you_?”

Kaidan takes a pull of his beer. “I’m not sure,” he says eventually.

She blinks her disbelief. “ _Really_? Since when?”

He squints at her, one eye entirely closed against a particularly aggressive ray of sun. “Does it ever seem odd to you? That we’re here?”

Her expression is utterly serious, as though trying desperately to sort out what Kaidan’s motives are in even asking the question. “I think we dodged a sizeable bullet, humanity,” she says eventually. “I think the odds were against us. But people beat odds every day.” She gestures at Kaidan as though to say, _Here you are, after all._

“See, that’s exactly my point,” he says, pointing at her. “A _lot_ of crazy shit aligned to generate this moment. I’ve narrowly avoided death -- a _lot_.” He indicates at his temple. “There’s no real way I should have survived that surgery, but here I am, walking and talking. Collector attack on the Normandy? Survived. I came face-to-face with Reapers _themselves_ three times, unobstructed by such luxuries as ‘ships’ or ‘vehicles’, and I made it through. I made it through brutes, geth, Horizon … I got owned _twice_ by massive head injuries in a very short period of time. And yet -- still here.”

“So you’re a living legend. I’d picked up on that sometime between the eighth and ninth op-ed about you, as it turns out. Thanks for underscoring it for me, though.”

He gives Allison a tight smile. “I’m finding it a lot to try to understand, that’s all.”

She studies him a minute longer before seeming to finally realize he’s actually not joking at all. “Wow. You’re really serious about this.”

Kaidan shrugs. “I don’t know whether I am or not. They’re just thoughts.” Then he smirks to himself. “Then again, maybe it’s all just the Shadow Broker’s doing.”

“What?”

“Nevermind. Remind me to comm Liara later.”

“Okay.” She eyeballs him suspiciously, but when he opts for silence, she doesn’t follow up further. 

They stand together in silence for some time.

“I’m glad you’re here, Allison,” he husks eventually.

She turns to him and smiles gently. “Thanks, Kay.”

“But you don’t have to worry about me, or coddle me, or show up just because you’re used to being my contact. I’m doing okay, Al. Really.”

Allison huffs as she turns her gaze back toward the sea, clearly disbelieving. “I saw the picture of Shepard in your office,” she admits eventually, “when I was snooping around.”

Kaidan gives another thin smile. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be proud or annoyed about that. At least it’s an appropriate memento. Not like I’m carrying around her tags anymore -- just a tasteful picture.”

“Yeah.” Allison nods suddenly. “Yeah, you’re right. That’s … good, I guess.”

The unstated premise is there: _She is gone, Kaidan. It’s time to accept it._

Kaidan shuts his eyes and lets a few heartbeats pass; but the tension doesn’t fade. “They never found her body, Allison,” he says against the implication of the silence.

“The Citadel was _fried_ , Kaidan,” she counters immediately, clearly as unwilling to let it drop as he is. “Consider the facts. Could she _really_ survived its collapse? Even then -- if she was rebuilt with synthetics, could she have _possibly survived_ a pulse that eradicated synthetic life? Most likely, Kay, she is dust in the wind--”

“That’s enough,” he says, quietly; but the sure serenity in his voice is enough to stop Allison mid-sentence. “Last time we couldn’t find her body, you told me she wasn’t coming back then, too. Remember that, Allison? And what were you...?”

“I -- was wrong, but--”

“You were _wrong_. Exactly.” He looks at her head-on. “You’re acting like I’m not as fucking astounded as you are how similar this is to last time -- but you’re also not giving me enough credit for the differences. _I’m_ not the same this time, Ally. I’m not wallowing the same way I was then.”

She holds his gaze as though trying to impart some truth through her eyes alone; then, carefully, she moves his whole body until he is facing her; takes his face between both her hands, and holds him still as she frowns pointedly at him. “You built -- the house -- from your dreams about her,” she says slowly.

“Actually, I didn’t,” Kaidan replies, pulling her hands gently away. “In my dreams, where the kitchen is now? That was the living room. The kitchen was tucked away where that first bathroom is, spilling into where I put my office--”

“Oh, okay, so you changed the floorplan.”

He scowls at her. “I said I was thinking of _calling_ it Shepard’s House, Allison -- but it’s _not_ Shepard’s house.” He waves a hand toward it, as though to illustrate his point. “This? This house is _mine_. She -- you know what? I think she would hate it here.” Kaidan smiles at Allison, a genuine thing; and she seems suckered into smiling at him back. “She might tolerate it, for me, if I asked her to, but it is _way_ too quiet here -- too rainy -- too unlike the plains of Mindoir. It’s a house made out of _wood_ , for Christ’s sake. She wouldn’t know the first thing about what to do with that. Put Shepard in here and she’d be itching to get out by day two. There’s not enough room to roam. There’s not enough space, not enough steel.” He shakes his head and looks back out over the horizon, far in the distance. “I built this house the way _I_ wanted it, Allison. It’s mine. Nothing about this is anything like she’d want. It has nothing to do with her.”

Kaidan glances at Allison and sees her watching him, something like understanding edging at the fringes of her concern. He shakes his head and takes a swig of his beer. “The thing that’s different from last time, since you’re not gonna let this go, is that -- yeah -- maybe I think she might still be out there somewhere. _Might,_ ” he emphasizes hastily; “only might. Is it also possible that she’s dead? Yeah, you bet. Totally possible; maybe even likely. She’s mortal, and the odds were against her. It is totally possible that she ran out of luck. But…” he clears his throat. “If she’s _not_ dead…”

“Kaidan,” says Allison in a worried, sing-songy voice.

“I’m just trying to say that this time, I get why she’d be running.” He turns his head and holds her gaze again, cocking his neck oddly against the sun’s stubborn, dying light. “The pressures on her after she was brought back … were insane. She was brought back by Cerberus _specifically_ to end the Reaper threat. They didn’t treat her like a person -- they treated her like a weapon.” He shakes his head and takes a solid pull from his beer. “Then, when she finally got away from Cerberus, she stumbled right back in with the Alliance -- and they treated her just the same way, like more of a tool than a person. And she -- was being crushed under the stress of that. Her life wasn’t a life; it was a legacy she hadn’t asked for. It was determined for her by the time she showed up to it. She didn’t have much left in her, by the time we landed in London. Even before that. And so I’d get it. If she was out there, somewhere, not getting in touch, learning how to live -- I’d get it.” 

He squints at Allison, and is relieved to see that she seems to be understanding him at last. “That’s what’s different this time, Ally, if you’re still concerned about that. I’m really not dwelling on the fact that she’s not here. If she’s not here, and she _is_ alive, then being not-here is what’s best for her; it’s the way she wants to live. And I wouldn’t take that away from her for the world.” 

He shrugs, in case Allison will allow him to pretend that this is a conversation of little consequence. “But if that is the case, then maybe, someday, she’ll want to come back to Earth. Maybe, someday, she’ll figure out a way to reconcile what we had together, or Earth, or the Alliance, with her new life -- to stop associating any of that with the years she was stripped of her autonomy. And on that day … it would be nice if she had somewhere to go, when she’s ready to ease back into facing the realities of how things were -- before. Wouldn’t it?”

Allison does not look at all convinced, but she does manage a reluctant sigh. “I guess,” she says.

He sweeps a hand behind him. “Ergo: Shepard’s house.”

Allison is searching him carefully; and he smiles at her, just to annoy her, as though to pretend that absolutely nothing he just said is at all crazy.

“I’ll … try to be cooler,” she says hesitantly, shuffling a foot. “About Shepard. I hear you, Kaidan; I do. I hear you. I just … really want you to be in a good place. If not today, then someday. You deserve it. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

“Oh, I am in a good place,” he says easily, leaning forward against the railing again. “I know you don’t see it, but especially since this place was finished, since Vancouver’s started to look like itself again -- and now that my powers are starting to come back in, no matter how slowly -- things are feeling pretty all right.” He smiles thinly at her, and she cocks her head in exasperation at the clear fact of his lying. “Besides, I’ve got pretty good friends to help me through the weirdness of being alive.”

Allison tuts and rolls her eyes; but when he offers his beer forward in cheers, she clinks her own against it, and they smile at each other, only for his face to break out into a wider grin when she rests her head against his arm. 

“It is a nice house,” she admits at last.

“I’m glad you think so,” says Kaidan. He reaches into his back pocket and fishes out a set of keys. “Here -- in case you ever want to come here when I’m not around. Good for getaways with Sam. She gripes, but I think she likes it here too.”

“Kaidan,” Allison says, straightening and taking them with a hesitant hand. Tiny copper scales of justice hang from the keychain; Allison seems suddenly overwhelmed as she examines them. “Are you sure? You don’t have to--”

“I know,” he says. “But you deserve something for putting up with me griping about my, uh, _gratitude_ all the time. Besides, I hate the thought of it standing empty when I’m off-planet. You’d be doing me a favour.” He turns to her suddenly, deadpan. “Plus -- what if Shepard comes by when I’m not around? Someone’ll need to greet her.”

Kaidan’s lip quirks, and Allison gives a slow blink. “Funny,” she says, monotone.

“A friendly face might be important to her,” he continues. “Someone to break the news that I’m no longer the mega-powerful stud I used to be.”

“You can still shoot a gun, you massive dweeb,” she says, flicking him in the shoulder and ignoring his feigned outburst of pain. “That’s what really gets folks between the sheets, anyway.”

“Right,” he agrees. “People are all about that steaming ... hot … metal.”

“Wow,” she says. “It’s been _that_ long since you got someone in bed with you, huh?”

“Worked on Shepard.”

“Yeah, but she already _loved_ you. That’s called cheating. Besides, what was it you actually did? Walked by her half-naked until she was suckered into displaying some attraction to you?”

“I was _suffering_. With my _malfunctioning biotic chip._ ”

“Uh-huh. Listen, fact remains that your seduction skills need work.”

“You don’t even _date men_ , what do you know about my seduction skills?”

“Tragically, more than I ever wanted to. Will you date, please?” She looks at him with wide eyes and pulls at his shoulder so he knows she’s serious. “Please, Kaidan. I’m in a relationship now. I can’t field your midnight phone calls anymore. I have … _plans_.”

“Yeah. God forbid I interrupt your lesbian sex marathons.”

“Listen,” she replies, holding a serious finger out in front of her. “You must at least have _respect_ for that, somewhere in the depths of your cold and celibate heart. Tell you what: make it a goal. You like achieving goals. ‘Become as good at sex as Sam and Allison.’ You’ll be kept plenty busy.”

Kaidan frowns and nods thoughtfully. “What’s the point of having this nice house if I can’t use it to impress future bedfellows?” he reasons. “Isolated location, rains all the time … what’s left except to stay in bed all day?”

She grins. “You can even … grill them … something.” She points to the giant grill on the other side of the porch. “People like grilled meats, right?”

“Ooh, grilled meats?” Samantha steps out onto the balcony with a beer of her own. “Burgers, I hope?”

Kaidan grins and waggles his eyebrows. “Now that you’ve put it that way, Ally, I think I’ll be fine. Hot metal, hard wood, thick beef … recipe for success.”

Allison and Sam look openly, immediately horrified. “Oh, dear god, stop,” Allison commands.

“Plus, I’ve got these muscles.” Kaidan flexes an arm; Allison and Traynor simultaneously make disgusted noises and block him from their vision, amid wild vocal objections.

Kaidan laughs into his beer. “You all don’t know what you’re missing,” he tells them.

“I think we do,” they say in unison; then, laughing, they kiss, with appalling fondness, directly in front of him.

Kaidan averts his eyes. Something equally joyful and unpleasant churns in his gut upon being met with such public affection these days; god only knows he’s happy they’ve found each other, but given that he’s stuck with them for the better part of a fortnight, he allows himself the luxury of a break. He looks around the line of trees, instead, newly shrouded in darkness now that the sun has finally set; and with light pouring onto the porch from the lamp in the kitchen, a soft and fuzzy yellow that makes him want to curl up and settle in with a hot toddy and a book, Kaidan feels -- for the first time in years -- that he may have finally come home.

He raises his beer into the night, and Allison and Traynor watch him, suddenly silent and still.

“To Shepard,” he says, “wherever she may be.”

Traynor and Allison join him in toasting the sky in polite observance; then there is a drink in unison, a minute of silence, and a deep breath before Kaidan finally shuffles his feet underneath him and pushes off from the porch’s railing. 

“I’ll start on dinner,” he says, trying to make his voice sound normal. “I actually did have burgers in mind -- already sorry about my beef jokes, for the record -- but I’ve got veg for you, Al.”

“Thank you,” she chirps happily. 

Samantha, making a face as Kaidan passes, chides Allison gently about her horrific vegetarianism as she pulls her gently by the hand in into the kitchen after him. Once inside, Kaidan turns suddenly on his heel and watches them stepping in, sliding the door shut behind them.

“Hey, Allison,” he says, trying for as casual as he knows how as Samantha sweeps past him toward the bedrooms. “Could you just … flick on the outside light by the door there?”

Allison gives him a suspicious look, but does as he asks. “Just in case?” she mutters as she walks into the kitchen toward him.

He purses his lips and nods solemnly. “Just in case.”

Allison, for once, remains silent; only squeezes his arm as she passes in a gesture of care and solidarity.

Suddenly overcome with appreciation for Allison, Kaidan picks up her hand as it leaves his arm; grabs it tightly in his own; and squeezes back, as though to convey how thankful he is that she’s here.

Then, after another prolonged moment of silence once left alone in the kitchen, Kaidan smiles to the sounds of Allison and Traynor laughing distantly in some back room of the house and starts on dinner.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lived in the pacific northwest for 14 years, including 7 years in Vancouver, so I crack all these jokes about it not without fondness. It's actually very sunny there in July and August, and maybe one day in December, but they barely have winter, which brings great joy to many. I, like Kaidan, find rain incredibly life-affirming, so if you're a gloomy granola baby like us, it's a fine place to be. [Halfmoon Bay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfmoon_Bay,_British_Columbia) is also a real place on the Sunshine Coast and is a perfectly lovely settlement with, basically, just a general store, stupendously beautiful walks along rocky beaches, and many gorgeous houses hidden among old-growth coniferous trees. If I ever go back to the PNW, come into a large sum of money, and have the luxury of comparative seclusion, my plan is pretty much Kaidan's plan. (Incidentally, this sentence also tragically explains most of this fic. I also daydream about Shepard a good portion of the time. The poor woman deserves better than such sadsacks.)
> 
> Writing this took me a year and a half and I’m pretty astounded some of you stuck around that whole time. Thanks for your patience and also your support. A total labour of love. Sequels likely, but eventual; follow the series, if so inclined. ♥
> 
> As an aside, I pushed out some "patch notes" as the fic (and after the fic) came to a close on Dec 9 2015. These are detailed in the note preceding Chapter 1, where you can now also find a timeline of where and how this fic fits into the main mass effect timeline.
> 
> You can find me crying about mass effect on [tumblr](http://skyllianverge.tumblr.com/).


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